BASEBALL'S 2016 PRE-INTEGRATION ERA COMMITTEE BALLOT: ARE THERE ANY HALL OF FAMERS LEFT?

The Pre-Integration Era Committee is currently one of three committees functioning as an overall unit to evaluate players and non-players from baseball's past who may have been overlooked in previous evaluations for the Hall of Fame. Those evaluations may have been done for players both by the BBWAA, which gets first crack at evaluating retired players for enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and by previous post-writers committees that are historically and collectively known as the veterans committee, which has existed in various forms ever since Hall of Fame selections have been made; this current unit is the latest incarnation of the veterans committee, although the term "veterans committee" is no longer officially recognized. In addition, these post-BBWAA committees also evaluate non-players—umpires, managers, executives, and pioneers—for Hall of Fame enshrinement.

Joining the Pre-Integration Committee are the Golden Era Committee, which covers the years 1947 to 1972, and the Expansion Era Committee, which covers from 1973 to the present. Since 2010, when all three committees were formed, each committee comes up to bat every three years. The Pre-Integration Committee first convened in 2012, with its selections slated for induction in 2013, and it voted three candidates into the Hall of Fame: umpire Hank O'Day, executive Jacob Ruppert, and player Deacon White.

One irony in the 2013 voting was its relation to the 2013 writers' vote, which on a ballot overstuffed with qualified Hall of Fame players did not elect a single candidate to the Hall, leaving White, who had last played a baseball game in 1890, as the only player to be inducted that year. And as a sardonic comment on the ongoing furor over recent players who may have "cheated" by using performance-enhancing drugs, James "Deacon" White was in reality a church deacon and a non-smoking, Bible-toting baseball player, a rarity in rough-and-tumble 19th-century baseball—as was his belief that the Earth was flat—whose supposed clean living stood as a rebuke to the PEDs-abusing current candidates.

To be fair, the Pre-Integration Era Committee's 2013 selections were not necessarily unjustified, and its fellow committees have also made judicious selections. For example, the Golden Era Committee in 2011 elected third baseman Ron Santo to the Hall of Fame, thus correcting a long-decried oversight, while in 2013 the Expansion Era Committee voted managers Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre (whose playing career was of near-Hall of Fame quality) into the 2014 Hall of Fame class.

However, last year's Golden Era Committee did not elect a single candidate to the Hall of Fame, this despite a number of players whose candidacies had been vigorously championed for many years, including Dick Allen, Gil Hodges, Minnie Miñoso, and Luis Tiant. I examined that ballot in detail, and I concluded that although a few players are truly on the threshold of the Hall of Fame—Allen, Tiant, and maybe Miñoso—none were ultimately oversights that needed to be corrected.

This prompts the question for this year's Pre-Integration Era Committee: Are there any Hall of Famers left from this period? This question becomes more salient because the period covered by the committee, 1876 to 1946, has been examined for decades. In fact, the stated purpose of the earliest veterans committees was to ensure that players from previous eras were not overlooked by voters who might not have experience or even knowledge of players from the 19th century or early 20th century who deserve to be recognized as among the greatest of all time.

On the other hand, the various incarnations of the veterans committee have also made many of the most marginal, even dubious, selections for the Hall of Fame. One notorious incarnation occurred under the watch of Frankie Frisch, a star second baseman nicknamed the "Fordham Flash" whom the writers inducted in 1947, but who as the veterans committee chairman in the late 1960s and early 1970s oversaw the induction of some of the least-qualified players in the Hall including pitchers Jesse Haines and Rube Marquard and fielders Travis Jackson and George "High Pockets" Kelly; many of these players were former Frisch teammates.

So, as we now turn to examining the Pre-Integration Era Committee ballot for 2016, the results of which are to be announced on December 7, 2015, the question remains: Are there any Pre-Integration Era candidates worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame?

The 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot

This year's Pre-Integration Era Committee has ten candidates to consider, six players, three executives, and one pioneer. The six players are Bill Dahlen, Wes Ferrell, Marty Marion, Frank McCormick, Harry Stovey, and Bucky Walters. The three executives are Sam Breadon, Garry Hermann, and Chris von der Ahe. The sole pioneer is Doc Adams.

Four of the six players had been on the previous Pre-Integration Era ballot for 2013. Dahlen had been the top vote-getter among players not elected, with 10 of the 16 votes (Deacon White was the sole player elected for 2013), while Ferrell, Marion, and Walters each received three or fewer votes. Breadon was also on the previous ballot, receiving three or fewer votes.

Five of the six players have appeared on at least one BBWAA ballot, which is notable because this group spans a broad expanse of baseball history. Stovey was a 19th-century player exclusively, playing from 1881 to 1893, and for eight of his 14-year playing career he played in leagues that have not existed for more than a century—seven years in the American Association League and one year in the Players' League. Dahlen straddled two centuries, starting in 1891 in the 19th century and ending in 1911 in the 20th century.

And while Dahlen and Stovey were pure products of the Dead-ball Period, the other four played exclusively in the Live-ball Period: Ferrell had the earliest start, beginning his 15-year career in 1927; Walters played his first Major League game in 1931, McCormick played his in 1934, and both wrapped up their careers just as the Integration Era began, while Marion straddled the Pre-Integration and Integration Eras, starting his career in 1940 season and ending it in 1953.

The wide historical span as well as the changing rules and practices of both the BBWAA and the veterans committees make any comparison difficult if not simply meaningless. Thus the following table summarizes five of the six players' voting records based on BBWAA balloting. (Harry Stovey has never appeared on a BBWAA ballot.) It lists their first appearance on a BBWAA ballot; the number of years they were on a ballot; the percentage of the vote they received in the first year and the final year on a ballot; and the highest percentage of the vote they received during their entire run on a ballot.

2016 Pre-Integration Era Candidates, BBWAA Voting Summary
Player	First Appearance	Years on Ballot	Debut Percentage	Ending Percentage	Highest Percentage
Bill Dahlen	1936	1	1.3	1.3	1.3
Wes Ferrell	1948	6	0.8	0.6	3.6
Marty Marion	1956	12	0.5	33.4	40.0
* Frank McCormick	1956	4	1.6	1.1	3.0
Bucky Walters	1950	13	2.4	9.7	23.7

* McCormick appeared on BBWAA ballots in 1956, 1962, 1964, and 1968.

Dahlen appeared on the very first writers' ballot in 1936, while Stovey was one of those players whom the veterans committee was worried would be forgotten or overlooked by the writers; Stovey did appear on the first veterans committee ballot in 1936 and received 7.7 percent of the vote. All six players have been considered at least for nomination at some point by an incarnation of the veterans committee, although the various approaches tried by different incarnations of the veterans committee does not help to determine whether any of these players are actually Hall of Famers.

At the 2015 Winter Meetings, the 16-member Pre-Integration Era Committee will meet to vote on the slate of ten candidates. The committee comprises four Hall of Fame members (Bert Blyleven, Bobby Cox, Pat Gillick, and Phil Niekro), four executives (Chuck Armstrong, Bill DeWitt, Gary Hughes, and Tal Smith), and eight media figures and historians (Steve Hirdt, Peter Morris, Jack O'Connell, Claire Smith, Tim Sullivan, T.R. Sullivan, Gary Thorne, and Tim Wendel). Half of the current committee—Blyleven, DeWitt, Gillick, Hirdt, Hughes, Morris, Smith, and T.R. Sullivan—had served on the committee that elected the 2013 inductees.

And just as that committee will be doing, let's do an in-depth examination of all ten candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot.

The 2016 Pre-Integration Era Player Candidates

There are a number of challenges in evaluating players from the Pre-Integration Era, from 1876 to 1946. First, the era spans seven decades—the first half of Major League Baseball's long history—and includes baseball at various stages of its development, often radically so: 19th-century baseball is in several respects unrecognizable compared to the modern game. Thus, it is tricky, to say the least, to compare a 19th-century player to a modern-era player (from 1901 onward) because each was playing a fundamentally different game. It is always tricky to compare players across different eras in any case, but more so for players who played before the modern era when there were significant differences regarding foul balls, fly balls, balks, stolen bases—even the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate.

Next, the evidence we have of players up to the early 20th century is fragmentary compared to that of players from later eras. There is no one alive now who saw Harry Stovey play baseball—Stovey's final season was in 1893. There most likely is not anyone alive who saw Bill Dahlen play even in his final season in 1911 (and there are precious few persons still alive who were even born in 1911). All we have to go on are their playing records and accounts written at the time and evaluations developed subsequently, which contain the biases and limitations of their times and of subsequent times, as perceptions change over time.

Finally, the legacy of the earliest players was a concern in 1936, when the first Hall of Fame voting took place. From that point on, various veterans committees engaged in determining whether players from bygone eras were Hall of Famers—at times with a zealousness that resulted in several marginal players being enshrined in the Hall; significantly, it has been the veterans committees and not the BBWAA voters that have selected the weakest Hall of Famers. In other words, all six players have been examined a number of times previously by various veterans committees, while four of them—Wes Ferrell, Marty Marion, Frank McCormick, and Bucky Walters—have been examined by BBWAA voters on more than one ballot.

So, are there any Hall of Famers left in the Pre-Integration Era? Let's find out.

Here are the four position players on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it and explained below the table.

Position Players on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Dahlen, Bill	.272/.358/.382	.357	75.2	77.5	110	108
Stovey, Harry	.289/.361/.461	.380	45.1	54.9	144	132
McCormick, Frank	.299/.348/.434	.363	34.8	33.3	118	118
Marion, Marty	.247/.320/.339	.317	31.6	30.0	81	83

Slash Line: Grouping of the player's career batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.

wOBA: Weighted on-base average as calculated by FanGraphs. Weighs singles, extra-base hits, walks, and hits by pitch; generally, .400 is excellent and .320 is league-average.

bWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference.

fWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs.

OPS+: Career on-base percentage plus slugging percentage, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 OPS+ indicating a league-average player, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a player is than a league-average player.

wRC+: Career weighted Runs Created, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 wRC+ indicating a league-average player, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a player is than a league-average player.

Here are the two pitchers on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it and explained below the table.

Pitchers on the 2015 Golden Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Pitcher	W-L (S), ERA	bWAR	fWAR	ERA+	ERA–	FIP–
Ferrell, Wes	193–128 (13), 4.04	61.6	50.8	116	87	93
Walters, Bucky	198–160 (4), 3.30	54.2	34.5	116	87	99

W-L (S), ERA: Grouping of the pitcher's career win-loss record (and career saves, if applicable) and career earned run average (ERA).

bWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference.

fWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by FanGraphs.

ERA+: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Positively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA+ indicating a league-average pitcher, and values above 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.

ERA–: Career ERA, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 ERA- indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.

FIP–: Fielding-independent pitching, a pitcher's ERA with his fielders' impact factored out, league- and park-adjusted, as calculated by FanGraphs. Negatively indexed to 100, with a 100 FIP– indicating a league-average pitcher, and values below 100 indicating the degrees better a pitcher is than a league-average pitcher.

An important note regarding both Wes Ferrell and Bucky Walters is that their WAR values, both from FanGraphs and especially from Baseball Reference, are significantly impacted by their hitting records. For bWAR, Ferrell derives a staggering 12.8 wins from his offensive value, and for fWAR it is a comparable 12.2 wins. Walters derives a significant 7.8 wins from his hitting for bWAR although for fWAR his offense is actually a liability at a –2.3 wins. We will examine this fascinating anomaly in greater detail below.

The table below combines both position players and pitchers into a ranking by bWAR with their fWAR values also listed.

All 2016 Pre-Integration Era Candidates, Ranked by bWAR
Rank	Player	bWAR	fWAR
1	Dahlen, Bill	75.2	77.5
2	Ferrell, Wes	61.6	50.8
3	Walters, Bucky	54.2	34.5
4	Stovey, Harry	45.1	54.9
5	McCormick, Frank	34.8	33.3
6	Marion, Marty	31.6	30.0

According to bWAR, and using 60.0 WAR as a rough baseline for serious consideration for the Hall of Fame, only Bill Dahlen and Wes Ferrell are worthy of serious discussion, with Bucky Walters on the threshold and worthy of some discussion. Does a ranking by fWAR change the criterion for discussion?

The table below combines both position players and pitchers into a ranking by fWAR with their bWAR values also listed.

All 2016 Pre-Integration Era Candidates, Ranked by fWAR
Rank	Player	fWAR	bWAR
1	Dahlen, Bill	77.5	75.2
2	Stovey, Harry	54.9	45.1
3	Ferrell, Wes	50.8	61.6
4	Walters, Bucky	34.5	54.2
5	McCormick, Frank	33.3	34.8
6	Marion, Marty	30.0	31.6

Even if ranked by fWAR, not much really changes in this sample. Dahlen remains at the top by a substantial margin while Ferrell and Stovey move onto the "bubble," into that region in which they might merit discussion for the Hall based on other criteria. Otherwise, no one else merits serious discussion.

And even though WAR is becoming commonplace regardless of which version is cited, it is not the only criterion for evaluation. Furthermore, it is a measure of a player's value that is helped in part by the longevity of a player's career—the longer a player plays, the more opportunities he has to be valuable to his team. Of course, if a player is playing for a long time, it may indicate that he does indeed have value to his team and does not need to be replaced, although all six player candidates played in periods of talent dispersion—there were a few great players in a pool of many mediocre ones—and thus even a player whose skills had eroded significantly was less likely to be replaced. Moreover, their WAR values are likely inflated because of the paucity of overall talent.

Nevertheless, WAR does measure the performance that contributes to that value, and both in a positive and negative manner; in other words, a player whose performance detracts from his team's ability to win is measured as a negative value. And sabermetrician Jay Jaffe has developed "JAWS," the Jaffe WAR Score system, to compare a player at a position against all players, in aggregate, who are already in the Hall at that position by using their WAR values. Note that Jaffe's system uses the Baseball Reference version of WAR, and the usual caveats about the limitations of WAR apply.

The JAWS rating itself is an average of a player's career WAR and his seven-year WAR peak. Jaffe also assigns one position to a player who may have played at more than one position, choosing the position at which the player contributed the most value. The purpose of JAWS is to improve, or at least maintain, the current Hall of Fame standards at each position to ensure that only players at least as good as average current Hall of Famers are selected for the Hall.

The table below lists all six players on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot, ranked by JAWS, along with other JAWS statistics, which are explained below the table, as well as the average bWAR and JAWS statistics for all Hall of Fame players at that position. The table also contains the players' ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards, also explained below the table.

All 2016 Pre-Integration Era Candidates, Qualitative Comparisons to Hall of Fame Players (Ranked by JAWS)
Player	Pos.	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	Ave. HoF bWAR	Ave. HoF JAWS	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Ferrell, Wes	SP	61.6	55.0	58.3	39	73.9	62.1	75	33*
Dahlen, Bill	SS	75.2	40.1	57.7	10	66.7	54.7	94	48
Walters, Bucky	SP	54.2	43.0	48.6	77	73.9	62.1	104	28**
Stovey, Harry	LF	45.1	31.1	38.1	37	65.1	53.3	86	34
McCormick, Frank	1B	34.8	28.3	31.6	57	65.9	54.2	86	18
Marion, Marty	SS	31.6	26.2	28.9	63	66.7	54.7	57	17

* Ferrell's index comprises values of 22 for his pitching record and 11 for his hitting record.

** Walters's index comprises values of 27 for his pitching record and 1 for his hitting record.

Pos.: Player's position under evaluation in this table.

bWAR: Career Wins Above Replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference.

WAR7: The sum of a player's best seven seasons as defined by bWAR; they need not be consecutive seasons.

JAWS: Jaffe WAR Score system—an average of a player's career WAR and his seven-year WAR peak.

JAWS Rank: The player's ranking at that position by JAWS rating.

Ave. HoF bWAR: The average bWAR value of all the Hall of Famers at that position.

Ave. HoF JAWS: The average JAWS rating of all the Hall of Famers at that position.

Hall of Fame Monitor: An index of how likely a player is to be inducted to the Hall of Fame based on his entire playing record (offensive, defensive, awards, position played, postseason success), with an index score of 100 being a good possibility and 130 a "virtual cinch." Developed by Baseball Reference from a creation by Bill James.

Hall of Fame Standards: An index of performance standards, indexed to 50 as being the score for an average Hall of Famer. Developed by Baseball Reference from a creation by Bill James.

Based solely on JAWS rankings, Bill Dahlen, ranked by JAWS as the tenth-best shortstop in baseball history, looks to be a criminally overlooked case. This is the conclusion reached by the Nineteenth Century Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) when it named Dahlen its Overlooked 19th-Century Baseball Legend for 2012. Of the top 15 shortstops as determined by JAWS who are currently eligible for the Hall of Fame, the only other candidate not already in the Hall of Fame is Alan Trammell, ranked just one spot below Dahlen—and Trammell's travails on the BBWAA ballot end this year one way or another as it is his final year on the writers' ballot.

(The other two shortstops in the top 15 not currently eligible for the Hall of Fame are Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. Barring a revelation that Jeter is a mad rapist or a serial killer, he is certain to be elected in his first year of eligibility in 2020. Rodriguez, alas, will wish that he were merely Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens with respect to performance-enhancing drugs: It is entirely possible that his Hall of Fame induction will be a posthumous one, long after everyone has forgotten why PEDs was such a contentious issue. It will certainly remain a contentious issue when Rodriguez, owner of the longest suspension for violating Major League Baseball drug policy, among other transgressions, becomes eligible for his first Hall of Fame ballot.)

But apart from Dahlen, none of the other player candidates seem overlooked according to JAWS rankings. However, Wes Ferrell is an intriguing case: He is ranked 39th among starting pitchers; there are 62 pitchers enshrined in the Hall of Fame, and considering the high number of marginal pitchers already in the Hall of Fame (along with the aforementioned Haines and Marquard, Chief Bender, Herb Pennock, Catfish Hunter, and Lefty Gomez, among others, are dubious picks), is Ferrell truly an overlooked Hall of Famer? As noted above, a significant portion of Ferrell's value derives from his offensive prowess—stripped of that, Ferrell does not look like a Hall of Fame pitcher. But are we being too narrowly focused? We'll have to explore this below.

As we did last year with the Golden Era candidates, let's examine this year's Pre-Integration Era candidates as they compare to their contemporaries already in the Hall of Fame. However, because the Pre-Integration Era is significantly longer than the Golden Era, almost three times longer, and because it comprises three broadly distinct periods—19th-century baseball, 20th-century "modern game" (since 1901) dead ball (from 1901 to 1920), and 20th-century "modern game" live ball (from 1921 to 1946)—it is only fair to make the comparisons equitable. And as we did last year, let's also make the comparisons against players at the same position, or at least at the candidates' primary position.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame First Baseman: 20th Century Live Ball

The only first baseman on the Pre-Integration Era ballot this year is Frank McCormick, who played primarily for the Cincinnati Reds and spent his entire 13-year career in the National League. McCormick came up for a cup of coffee with the Reds in 1934 before spending the next two seasons in the minor leagues. He saw limited action with the parent club in 1937 before becoming a full-time player for the Reds the following season, and after an auspicious start—he led the National League in hits for three consecutive years between 1938 and 1940—McCormick was a lineup fixture until 1946; he retired two seasons later.

The table below includes the five Hall of Fame first basemen from the live-ball period of the Pre-Integration Era whose career timelines overlap with McCormick's to some degree, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it.

To bolster an admittedly small sample, I've included Rudy York, who is not in the Hall of Fame or a candidate on this ballot; however, in a coincidence too timely to pass up, York's career timeline is identical to McCormick's (1934 to 1948) while York is ranked immediately behind McCormick on the JAWS listing for first basemen.

Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) Hall of Fame First Basemen and 2016 First Basemen Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Gehrig, Lou	.340/.447/.632	.477	112.4	116.3	179	173
Foxx, Jimmie	.325/.428/.609	.460	96.4	101.8	163	158
Mize, Johnny	.312/.397/.562	.433	71.0	68.6	158	157
Greenberg, Hank	.313/.412/.605	.453	57.5	61.1	158	154
Bottomley, Jim	.310/.369/.500	.393	35.3	37.7	125	124
McCormick, Frank	.299/.348/.434	.363	34.8	33.3	118	118
* York, Rudy	.275/.362/.483	.390	34.7	39.1	123	122

* Not in the Hall of Fame or on this ballot.

The table below lists these five Hall of Fame first basemen associated with the live-ball period of the Pre-Integration Era along with McCormick and York, ranked by JAWS, along with other JAWS statistics and ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards. Also included are the JAWS statistics for all first basemen in the Hall of Fame.

2016 Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) First Baseman Candidate, Qualitative Comparisons to Hall of Fame First Basemen (Ranked by JAWS)
Player	No. of Years	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Gehrig, Lou	17	1923	1939	112.4	67.7	90.0	1	352	72
Foxx, Jimmie	20	1925	1945	96.4	59.4	77.9	3	314	72
Mize, Johnny	15	1936	1953	71.0	48.8	59.9	8	175	47
Ave of 19 HoF 1B	NA	NA	NA	65.9	42.4	54.2	NA	NA	NA
Greenberg, Hank	13	1930	1947	57.5	47.7	52.6	16	188	46
Bottomley, Jim	16	1922	1937	35.3	28.8	32.0	55	99	42
McCormick, Frank	13	1934	1948	34.8	28.3	31.6	57	86	18
* York, Rudy	13	1934	1948	34.7	28.4	31.5	58	68	28

* Not in the Hall of Fame or on this ballot.

Admittedly, four of the Hall of Fame first basemen from McCormick's playing period—Gehrig, Foxx, Mize, and Greenberg—are among the best ever to play the game; on the other hand, we are evaluating legacy to determine whether McCormick is among the best-ever, aren't we?

Tellingly, the fifth Hall of Fame first baseman from this period, Jim Bottomley, had been elected to the Hall in 1974 by a veterans committee chaired by Frankie Frisch, who had been accused of fostering cronyism in the committee's selections—and it is no surprise that Bottomley and Frisch had been teammates on the St. Louis Cardinals. But although Bottomley's credentials for the Hall of Fame are marginal at best, they are still better than McCormick's.

Frank McCormick's career got off to an auspicious start, and he had a fine career capped by being named the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1940 and by being named to eight NL All-Star teams, with seven of those appointments consecutive ones from 1938 to 1944. (In 1945, there was no All-Star Game held because of wartime travel restrictions, and no players were officially selected that year; McCormick had been selected to the NL All-Star squad in 1946, his last year as an All-Star.) He led the NL in hits three years in a row, establishing his career-high single-season total of 209 hits in 1938 and matching that in 1939, and he had seasons with 150 or more hits five other times.

During that seven-year period from 1938 to 1944, when he had been named as an All-Star, McCormick posted a .304/.351/.451 slash line, averaging each season 178 hits, 35 doubles, 14 home runs, 80 runs scored, and 101 runs batted in; his OPS+ during this period was 122, and his seasonal bWAR was 4.0—strong for a starting player but below the minimum of 5.0 typically expected of All-Star-caliber players; he did generate seasonal bWARs above 5.0 in 1939, 1940, and 1944, that last year containing his career-high of 6.1. (During McCormick's playing career, the Wins Above Replacement statistic did not exist; it has been applied retrospectively.)

McCormick did have four seasons in which he finished in the top ten for NL Most Valuable Player voting, and he won the award in 1940 when he led the League in hits (191) and doubles (44) while posting a .309/.367/.482 slash line with 19 home runs, 93 runs scored, and 127 RBI, one shy of his career-high from the previous year, when he led the NL in RBI; all told, he had four seasons with 100 or more RBI.

Doubtless McCormick's excellent performance was a crucial factor in leading his Cincinnati Reds to the National League pennant in 1940; the Reds then defeated the Detroit Tigers in seven games to become World Series champions. However, McCormick's MVP award has been criticized over the years, with the critical consensus being that fellow first baseman Johnny Mize of the St. Louis Cardinals deserved the award.

In 1940, Mize led the NL in home runs (43) and RBI (137) as he put up a robust .313/.404/.636 slash line; retrospectively, Mize also led the League in overall bWAR with 7.4 (McCormick was sixth with 5.7), offensive bWAR with 7.7 (McCormick was eighth with 4.4), and OPS+ with 177 (McCormick's 132 did not make the top ten). Alas, the Cardinals placed third in the NL standings, 16 games behind the Reds although St. Louis nevertheless won 84 games. McCormick also played during the war years—the United States was officially at war from 1942 to 1945—when the talent pool was depleted by the absence of many Major League players serving in the military; those included Mize, who spent three years, from 1943 to 1945, in the US Navy during the prime of his career.

A solid first baseman with a fine career, Frank McCormick is not an exceptional candidate, and his has not been overlooked previously. He is not a Hall of Fame player.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Shortstop: Dead Ball

Although there are two shortstops on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot, Bill Dahlen and Marty Marion, each played in fundamentally different periods—Dahlen straddled the 19th and 20th centuries as he played exclusively with the dead ball, while Marion played exclusively with the live ball. Thus, it would be inaccurate, if not unfair, to compare them directly.

So, let's start with Dahlen first. Here are the five Hall of Fame shortstops associated with the Pre-Integration Era (Dead Ball) whose careers overlapped Dahlen's to some degree, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it.

Pre-Integration Era (Dead Ball) Hall of Fame Shortstops and 2016 Shortstop Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Wagner, Honus	.328/.391/.467	.408	131.0	138.1	151	147
Davis, George	.295/.362/.405	.366	84.7	84.6	121	118
Dahlen, Bill	.272/.358/.382	.357	75.2	77.5	110	108
Wallace, Bobby	.268/.332/.358	.333	70.2	62.4	105	104
Tinker, Joe	.262/.308/.353	.319	53.2	55.5	96	96
Jennings, Hughie	.312/.391/.406	.385	42.3	44.9	118	119

The table below lists these five Hall of Fame shortstops associated with the Pre-Integration Era (Dead Ball) and Dahlen, ranked by JAWS, along with other JAWS statistics and ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards. Also included are the JAWS statistics for all shortstops in the Hall of Fame.

Pre-Integration Era (Dead Ball) 2016 Shortstop Candidate, Qualitative Comparisons to Hall of Fame Shortstops (Ranked by JAWS)
Player	No. of Years	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Wagner, Honus	21	1897	1917	131.0	65.4	98.2	1	312	75
Davis, George	20	1890	1909	84.7	44.3	64.5	4	81	54
Dahlen, Bill	21	1891	1911	75.2	40.1	57.7	10	94	48
Wallace, Bobby	25	1894	1918	70.2	41.8	56.0	14	30	30
Ave of 21 HoF SS	NA	NA	NA	66.7	42.8	54.7	NA	NA	NA
Tinker, Joe	15	1902	1916	53.2	33.1	43.2	24	24	20
Jennings, Hughie	18	1891	1918	42.3	39.0	40.6	28	88	34

In this sample, Bill Dahlen ranks third, behind Honus Wagner and George Davis. The difference between Wagner and Davis is an interesting gulf. Wagner was one of the first five players ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, ahead of even Cy Young, who had won an amazing 511 games as a pitcher and whose name would later be used on the award that honors the best pitcher in each league. (Young was inducted the next year.) Wagner tied with Babe Ruth for the second-highest vote total; then, more than sixty years later, Wagner was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999, albeit one of five chosen by a select panel as opposed to having been voted onto the team by fan balloting.

Davis, by contrast, fell into obscurity as soon as he stopped playing baseball. He appears in no official records by either the BBWAA or the veterans committee concerning voting. Davis's statistics had always been part of the baseball record, but no one really paid any mind to them, at least within the last two decades, until Bill James in his book about the Hall of Fame declared Davis to be the best player not inducted into the Hall. Two years later, other baseball researchers including John Thorn and Pete Palmer, co-authors of the official baseball encyclopedia Total Baseball, took up the cry, and by 1998 the veterans committee had elected Davis.

Dahlen may be just behind Davis, but in terms of value he is ahead of Bobby Wallace, Joe Tinker, and Hughie Jennings, shortstops roughly from Dahlen's time period who had all been inducted into the Hall between the 1940s and 1950s.

Defensively, Dahlen remains among distinguished company. The table below lists the Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame shortstops from the dead-ball period and Dahlen, ranked by dWAR, or Wins Above Replacement based on defensive value only, with other defensive metrics (explained below the table) and their career stolen base totals.

Defensive and Stolen-Base Statistics for Pre-Integration Era (Dead Ball) Hall of Fame Shortstops and 2016 Shortstop Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by dWAR
Player	Putouts	Assists	Double Plays Turned	Total Zone	dWAR	Fld. Pct.	RF/9	League RF/9	Stolen Bases
Tinker, Joe	3768	5856	671	180	34.3	.938	5.63	5.40	336
Wallace, Bobby	4142	6303	640	105	28.7	.938	5.89	5.61	201
Dahlen, Bill	4856	7505	881	120	28.4	.927	5.96	5.67	548
Davis, George	3239	4794	590	106	24.0	.940	6.04	5.74	619
Wagner, Honus	4576	6041	766	67	21.3	.940	5.67	5.43	723
Jennings, Hughie	2384	3143	411	56	9.0	.922	6.37	5.77	359

Total Zone Number of Runs Saved: Indexed to a league-average of 0, with a seasonal 15 TZ equivalent to a Gold Glove-caliber defender, as calculated by FanGraphs.

dWAR: Wins Above Replacement for defensive play only, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Note that this value is an aggregate value and includes value generated at positions other than shortstop.

Fld. Pct: Fielding percentage, defined as total putouts plus total assists divided by total chances (total putouts, total assists, total errors).

RF/9: Range factor per nine innings, defined as total putouts plus total assists multiplied by 9, and then divided by the total innings played.

League RF/9: Range factor per nine innings, defined as total putouts plus total assists multiplied by 9, and then divided by the total innings played, computed for the entire league.

In terms of dWAR (again, a statistic that did not exist in Dahlen's day), Dahlen is ahead of Davis and Wagner, while he is second only to Tinker in total runs saved above a league-average shortstop. And if Dahlen is second all-time among shortstops in errors committed, contributing to his relatively low fielding percentage, he is also second in putouts and fourth in assists. Dahlen's range factor is also above the league average.

Offensively, for a 13-year period from 1892 to 1904, Dahlen produced a .287/.371/.410 slash line, averaging each season 139 hits including 24 doubles, 11 triples, and 5 home runs while scoring 95 runs and driving in 72 as he swiped 35 bases. Dahlen's 2461 hits ranks 107th all-time, his 413 doubles 158th, and his 163 triples, coincidentally tied with Davis, ranks 33rd, while his 1590 runs scored is 50th best as his 548 stolen bases are 28th all-time. In addition, Dahlen's 1234 RBI is 140th all-time, which remains impressive for a middle infielder of his era.

At the tail-end of his playing career, Bill Dahlen became manager of the Brooklyn franchise, known as either the Dodgers or the Superbas depending on which year it was, although it should be noted that the team's nickname was not an official designation at least until 1932, when the name "Dodgers" first appeared on the team's uniforms. Dahlen had inherited a weak club, and he was unable to do much except keep the team out of the cellar for the four years that he managed from 1910 to 1913. However, his ferocious temper, vented at various umpires, cemented his own nickname of "Bad Bill," and he is still among the top ten managers all-time with 65 ejections.



"Bad Bill" Dahlen looks ready to tussle with the umpire and possibly receive one of his 65 ejections.

As a shortstop during a time when baseball transitioned from the 19th-century game to the modern game, and during a time when middle infielders were not expected to be offensive threats, Bill Dahlen was an outstanding two-way player, a slugging shortstop who could steal bases and was a reliable glove at a crucial defensive position. And as a 35-year-old shortstop in 1905, Dahlen helped the then-New York Giants to their first World Series championship.

Frankly, there are very few players from the Pre-Integration Era who have been overlooked with respect to inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, Bill Dahlen is legitimately one of them—he is clearly equivalent to his contemporaries already in the Hall, and in terms of bWAR and JAWS he is above the threshold formed by the aggregated records of all shortstops in the Hall. Dahlen just missed election on his last ballot for the 2013 induction—that honor going to Deacon White instead—and this year is the opportunity to correct that oversight. Bill Dahlen is a Hall of Famer.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Shortstop: Live Ball

On the other hand, Marty Marion has not been overlooked—he had appeared on 12 BBWAA ballots between 1956 and 1973, garnering 40 percent of the vote in 1970, his best showing. And there is a reason why Marion is not already in the Hall of Fame, which we will now examine.

Here are the five Hall of Fame shortstops associated with the Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) whose careers overlapped Marion's to some degree, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it.

Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) Hall of Fame Shortstops and 2016 Shortstop Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Appling, Luke	.310/.399/.398	.378	74.5	72.7	113	115
Vaughan, Arky	.318/.406/.453	.399	72.9	72.6	136	138
Reese, Pee Wee	.269/.366/.377	.350	66.4	61.3	99	103
Boudreau, Lou	.295/.380/.415	.375	63.0	64.5	120	122
Rizzuto, Phil	.273/.351/.355	.335	40.8	41.3	93	96
Marion, Marty	.263/.323/.345	.317	31.6	30.0	81	83

The table below lists these five Hall of Fame shortstops associated with the Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) and Marion, ranked by JAWS, along with other JAWS statistics and ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards. Also included are the JAWS statistics for all shortstops in the Hall of Fame.

Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) 2016 Shortstop Candidate, Qualitative Comparisons to Hall of Fame Shortstops (Ranked by JAWS)
Player	No. of Years	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Vaughan, Arky	14	1932	1948	72.9	50.6	61.8	6	116	52
Appling, Luke	20	1930	1950	74.5	43.8	59.1	9	149	57
Boudreau, Lou	15	1938	1952	63.0	48.7	55.8	15	89	34
Ave of 21 HoF SS	NA	NA	NA	66.7	42.8	54.7	NA	NA	NA
Reese, Pee Wee	16	1940	1958	66.4	41.0	53.6	17	100	39
Rizzuto, Phil	13	1941	1956	40.8	33.8	37.3	35	87	23
Marion, Marty	13	1940	1953	31.6	26.2	28.9	63	57	17

To be fair, the statistics featured in the two tables immediately above are weighted to a player's offensive ability, and shortstop is a position that has been considered to be primarily a defensive one since it had been created in the 19th century (and we'll examine Doc Adams in detail below). And although the Hall of Fame has historically rewarded position players for their offensive prowess much more so that for their defensive ability, it has recognized players whose reputation has rested primarily with their glove than with their bat, from Ray Schalk to Nellie Fox to Ozzie Smith.

So, let's examine whether Marion, who never hit more than six home runs in a single season (he retired with 36 dingers all told) nor came closer than 20 points of a .300 batting average in any given year, has the fielding wizardry to merit inclusion in the Hall of Fame—or at least justify his nicknames "The Octopus" and "Mr. Shortstop."

The table below lists the Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame shortstops from the live-ball period and Marion, ranked by dWAR, or Wins Above Replacement based on defensive effectiveness only, with other defensive metrics and their career stolen base totals.

Defensive and Stolen-Base Statistics for Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) Hall of Fame Shortstops and 2016 Shortstop Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era (Live Ball) Era Ballot, Ranked by dWAR
Player	Putouts	Assists	Double Plays Turned	Total Zone	dWAR	Fld. Pct.	RF/9	League RF/9	Stolen Bases
Reese, Pee Wee	4040	5891	1246	107	25.6	.962	5.05	5.11	232
Marion, Marty	2986	4829	978	130	25.0	.969	5.27	5.24	35
Boudreau, Lou	3132	4760	1180	115	23.3	.954	5.27	5.13	51
Rizzuto, Phil	3219	4666	1217	107	22.9	.968	5.20	5.09	149
Appling, Luke	4398	7218	1424	39	19.0	.948	5.35	5.21	179
Vaughan, Arky	2995	4780	850	17	12.0	.951	5.36	5.43	118

Among his contemporaries already in the Hall of Fame, Marty Marion emerges as the elite fielder, tops in Total Zone defensive runs saved and just a tick over a half-win behind Pee Wee Reese in defensive WAR while he just beats out Phil Rizzuto for the highest fielding percentage, although his range factor compared to the league's suggest that "The Octopus"'s tentacles might not have been as long as previously perceived. Nevertheless, Marion has at least the defensive qualifications to justify his consideration for the Hall.

However, does Marion hold up against all shortstops considered to be outstanding defensive players? Ranked by Baseball Reference's defensive WAR, Marion is tied for 17th all-time among fielders at all positions—and as an indication of the defensive value of a shortstop, all but six of those first 17 slots are filled by shortstops. (Marion shares 17th place with fellow shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh and catcher Jim Sundberg.)

The table below lists defensive statistics (and career stolen bases) for the 17 shortstops on the list of all position players with the 25 highest defensive WAR values all-time. Ten of those shortstops are in the Hall of Fame (denoted by a +) while both Bill Dahlen and Marty Marion are on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot (both indicated in bold italic). (Omar Vizquel will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2018.)

Defensive and Stolen-Base Statistics for the Top 16 Hall of Fame Shortstops and 2016 Shortstop Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by dWAR
Player	Putouts	Assists	Double Plays Turned	Total Zone	dWAR	Fld. Pct.	RF/9	League RF/9	Stolen Bases
Smith, Ozzie +	4249	8375	1590	239	43.4	.978	5.22	4.78	580
Belanger, Mark	3005	5786	1054	238	39.4	.977	5.16	4.93	167
Ripken, Jr., Cal +	3651	6977	1565	176	34.6	.979	4.73	4.69	36
Tinker, Joe +	3768	5856	671	180	34.3	.938	5.63	5.40	336
Aparicio, Luis +	4548	8016	1553	149	31.6	.972	5.05	4.89	506
Maranville, Rabbit +	5139	7354	1188	115	30.8	.952	5.92	5.64	291
Wallace, Bobby +	4142	6303	640	105	28.7	.938	5.89	5.61	201
Dahlen, Bill	4856	7505	881	120	28.4	.927	5.96	5.67	548
Vizquel, Omar	4102	7676	1734	137	28.4	.985	4.62	4.35	404
Fletcher, Art	2836	5134	620	145	28.3	.939	5.67	5.50	160
Reese, Pee Wee +	4040	5891	1246	107	25.6	.962	5.05	5.11	232
Marion, Marty	2986	4829	978	130	25.0	.969	5.27	5.24	35
Peckinpaugh, Roger	3919	6337	966	100	25.0	.949	5.31	5.25	205
Davis, George +	3239	4794	590	106	24.0	.940	6.04	5.74	619
Bancroft, Dave +	4623	6561	1021	94	23.4	.944	6.12	5.70	145
Boudreau, Lou +	3132	4760	1180	115	23.3	.954	5.27	5.13	51
McBride, George	3585	5274	609	98	23.2	.948	5.56	5.41	133

+ In the Hall of Fame

Leaving aside the wide variances in the style and quality of play these fielders faced depending on when they played, Marty Marion emerges as a viable if not auspicious candidate at least in terms of defensive play. But even if the shortstop position rewards defensive play as a Hall of Fame qualification, it is not the exclusive, or even the dominant, criterion—were that the case, Mark Belanger, with a career slash line of .228/.300/.280 and 20 home runs in more than 2000 games, would have been inducted by now.

To assess the offensive contribution these defensive stars made during their career, let's examine Hall of Fame shortstops and current Pre-Integration Era shortstop candidate Bill Dahlen included in the table immediately above, whose "slash line" (batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage) are comparable to Marty Marion's, first qualitatively and then quantitatively.

The table below lists those shortstops just identified with their respective qualitative statistics, ranked by bWAR.

Hall of Fame Shortstops (All Eras) and 2016 Shortstop Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Smith, Ozzie	.262/.337/.328	.305	76.5	67.6	87	90
Dahlen, Bill	.272/.358/.382	.357	75.2	77.5	110	108
Wallace, Bobby	.268/.332/.358	.333	70.2	62.4	105	104
Reese, Pee Wee	.269/.366/.377	.350	66.4	61.3	99	103
Aparicio, Luis	.262/.311/.343	.296	55.7	49.1	82	83
Tinker, Joe	.262/.308/.353	.319	53.2	55.5	96	96
Bancroft, Dave	.279/.355/.358	.342	48.5	49.2	98	100
Maranville, Rabbit	.258/.318/.340	.313	42.8	42.5	82	83
Rizzuto, Phil	.273/.351/.355	.335	40.8	41.3	93	96
Marion, Marty	.263/.323/.345	.317	31.6	30.0	81	83

The table below lists those shortstops with selected quantitative statistics (i.e., "counting numbers"). These statistics reflect those of a "table-setting" hitter, typically in the lead-off or number-two spot in the batting order, whose duties include getting on base, stealing bases, and moving up runners. Listed in the table are hits, doubles, triples, runs scored, bases on balls, stolen bases, and sacrifice hits.

Hall of Fame Shortstops (All Eras) and 2016 Shortstop Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by Hits
Position Player	H	2B	3B	R	BB	SB	SH
Aparicio, Luis	2677	394	92	1335	736	506	161
Maranville, Rabbit	2605	380	177	1256	839	291	300
Dahlen, Bill	2461	413	163	1590	1064	548	*165
Smith, Ozzie	2460	402	69	1257	1072	580	214
Wallace, Bobby	2309	391	143	1057	774	201	173
Reese, Pee Wee	2170	330	80	1338	1210	232	157
Bancroft, Dave	2004	320	77	1048	827	145	212
Tinker, Joe	1690	263	114	774	416	336	285
Rizzuto, Phil	1588	239	62	877	651	149	193
Marion, Marty	1448	272	37	602	470	35	151

* Partial total as this statistic was not recorded for his entire career.

It should be noted that Marion played the fewest games of the ten shortstops profiled, and thus it partially explains why some of his counting numbers, including hits, are the lowest of the sample, which is why he is at the bottom of the list. On the other hand, Marion was also ranked last in the previous table of qualitative statistics, and by now a clear picture of Marion should be emerging.

Marion most closely resembles Phil Rizzuto, whose career overlapped almost identically with Marion's as both shortstops played for a total of 13 seasons each. However, Rizzuto lost three years of his career during World War Two when he served in the US Navy from 1943 to 1945, his age-25 through age-27 seasons. By contrast, Marion, who was only three months younger than Rizzuto, played throughout the war, and in fact had his best seasons during the war, when the talent pool was diluted (as we noted while examining Frank McCormick).

In 1944, Marion was even named the National League's Most Valuable Player, a selection that, much like McCormick's MVP award in 1940, has been criticized over the decades. Marion was certainly an integral part of the St. Louis Cardinals team that won the NL pennant that year and then beat the crosstown St. Louis Browns in the World Series in six games, but Marion's teammate Stan Musial had another stellar year in 1944, finishing at or near the top of most major offensive categories, and would seem to have been a more deserving recipient, as would have Bill Nicholson of the Chicago Cubs, who led the NL in home runs and RBI, or Dixie Walker of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who led the league in batting. Even if the award were for Marion's defensive performance, he was bested at shortstop by the Cincinnati Reds' Eddie Miller in every category except fielding percentage, which Marion took by one percentage point over Miller.

Musial came in fourth in voting after having won his first MVP award in 1943; he won another MVP award in 1946 after having missed the 1945 season because of his military service in the US Navy.

Returning to Marty Marion and Phil Rizzuto: After Rizzuto's playing career ended, he became an announcer for the New York Yankees, the team for whom he played his entire career. Rizzuto became the Yankees' longest-serving announcer, having broadcast games for 40 years, and that was likely a factor in helping him be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the veterans committee in 1994.

Marion became a manager for six seasons, first for his Cardinals in 1951, the year after he retired as a player. Then in 1952 he moved across town to become the player-manager for the Browns for two seasons although his playing time in 1953, at third base, was negligible. After the Browns left town for Baltimore (they became the Orioles), Marion moved to the Chicago White Sox where he was a coach for much of the 1954 season before becoming manager for the final few games; he returned as manager for the next two years. Marion's managerial record is hardly auspicious in aggregate—he won 356 games and lost 372 for a .489 winning percentage—although his management of the hapless Browns, one of the most woeful franchises in Major League history, skews his record as a manager. In two seasons, his Browns won 96 and lost 161, but he notched an 81–73 record for the Cardinals while totaling 179 wins against 138 losses for the White Sox, including a high of 91 wins in 1955; however, his non-Browns teams finished in third place in each of those five seasons.

Rizzuto's admission into the Hall of Fame has been criticized because of his lightweight credentials. Rizzuto did win an MVP award in the American League in 1950, when he established career highs in more than a dozen offensive categories including hits (200), doubles (36), home runs (7), runs scored (125), walks (92), and overall slash line (.324/.418/.439); Rizzuto also led the AL in sacrifice hits with 19 and thus became the only position-player MVP to lead his league in that category. Moreover, his bWAR of 6.7 was best among just about every candidate who received an MVP vote; the Cleveland Indians' Larry Doby, who finished eighth in voting, posted a 6.7 bWAR as well.

As for the other shortstops with similar qualitative offensive statistics in this sample, almost all of them have at least one notable quantitative statistic in his resume—Aparicio, Dahlen, and Smith all swiped at least 500 bases, for example, while even Maranville, a rare example of a dubious BBWAA election, still collected more than 2600 hits. Marion, on the other hand, is uniformly inauspicious.

Based on the statistical record, Marty Marion is one of the best defensive shortstops in Major League history, but even with three World Series rings and one suspect MVP award under his belt, Marion is not a Hall of Famer.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Left Fielder: 19th Century

As we have seen, Bill Dahlen has been legitimately overlooked for the Hall of Fame, perhaps because his career straddled the 19th and 20th centuries, leaving his legacy behind in the mists of baseball history. That could make it even more difficult for Harry Stovey, whose career spanned the years from 1880 to 1893, encompassing the pre-modern game with its significant differences from the baseball we know today coupled with a fragmented statistical record and nothing but bygone accounts of his feats with which to evaluate him.

On the other hand, the Nineteenth Century Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research declared that Stovey was its Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for 2011, and although Stovey did not appear on the Pre-Integration Committee's 2013 ballot, he has made the current ballot, which gives us the opportunity to examine his Hall of Fame worthiness.

Here are the five Hall of Fame left fielders associated with the 19th-century Pre-Integration Era whose careers mostly overlapped Stovey's to some degree, ranked by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it. Fred Clarke's career began one year after Stovey had retired, but it is included to increase the sample size.

19th-Century Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Left Fielders and 2016 Left Fielder Candidate on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Position Player	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Delahanty, Ed	.346/.411/.505	.428	69.5	73.7	152	144
Clarke, Fred	.312/.386/.429	.390	67.8	72.8	133	131
Burkett, Jesse	.338/.415/.446	.411	62.9	66.6	140	137
O'Rourke, Jim	.310/.352/.422	.360	51.3	52.1	134	127
Kelley, Joe	.317/.402/.451	.405	50.6	54.9	134	130
Stovey, Harry	.289/.361/.461	.380	45.1	54.9	144	132

Those five Hall of Fame left fielders are listed in the table below, ranked by JAWS, with other JAWS statistics and ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards. Also included are the JAWS statistics for all left fielders in the Hall of Fame.

2016 19th-Century Pre-Integration Era Left Field Candidate, Qualitative Comparisons to 19th-Century Hall of Fame Left Fielders (Ranked by JAWS)
Player	No. of Years	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Delahanty, Ed	16	1888	1903	69.5	48.5	59.0	6	234	65
Ave of 19 HoF LF	NA	NA	NA	65.1	41.5	53.3	NA	NA	NA
Clarke, Fred	21	1894	1915	67.8	36.1	52.0	12	86	50
Burkett, Jesse	16	1890	1905	62.9	37.2	50.0	13	191	56
Kelley, Joe	17	1891	1908	50.6	36.2	43.4	23	98	52
Stovey, Harry	14	1880	1893	45.1	31.1	38.1	37	86	34
O'Rourke, Jim	23	1872	1904	51.3	24.2	37.8	39	84	49

Stovey may be overlooked but compared to the 19th-century left fielders already in the Hall of Fame, he lands at the bottom of the rankings. He did have the shortest career of them all, and WAR and JAWS statistics tend to favor players with longer careers and thus more opportunities to provide value.

In this respect, Stovey compares most closely to Jim O'Rourke, whose career was more than one-third longer than Stovey's, reflected in O'Rourke's bWAR—although FanGraphs' WAR rating is bullish on Stovey and nudges him ahead of O'Rourke, while JAWS, which averages peak seasons and overall value, has Stovey just ahead of O'Rourke. (O'Rourke's playing career effectively ended in 1893, although he pulled a Minnie Miñoso and appeared in one game for the New York Giants in 1904, getting a single in four at-bats, and at age 53 becoming the oldest player to hit safely in Major League history.) O'Rourke's Hall of Fame induction by the veterans committee came fairly early, in 1945, largely because for Major League Baseball's first decade and a half, he ranked behind only Cap Anson in several categories—and behind only Stovey in runs scored.

Stovey ranks 73rd in career runs scored with 1492, nestled between Hall of Famers Frank Thomas (1494) and Goose Goslin (1482) on the all-time list (O'Rourke ranks 24th with 1729), 21st in triples with 174 and 34th in stolen bases with 509, keeping in mind that stolen bases were not even recorded as an official statistic until 1886 and that the rules regarding base-stealing as we know it today were not fully implemented until 1898, five years after Stovey's career ended.

With his fourth home run for the National League's Boston Beaneaters in 1891, Stovey became the first Major League hitter to hit 100 home runs; he finished his career with 122. Stovey led the league in round-trippers five times, including a career-high 19 in 1889, while notching double-digit totals in six different seasons. In addition, he led the league in triples four times and posted double-digit season totals eleven times, hitting 20 or more three-baggers three times with a career-best 23 in 1884. His slugging prowess is also reflected in his leading the league in total bases and in slugging percentage three times each. And although his stolen-base record is fragmentary and subject to the rules of the time, Stovey was a league-leader twice, swiping a career-high 97 bags in 1890 while collecting 40 or more in seven consecutive years from 1886 to 1892. Stovey also led the league in runs scored four times, three of those in consecutive seasons as he had nine consecutive seasons with 100 or more runs scored, and he led the league in RBI once.

Flashing both power and speed, Harry Stovey was the prototype of the modern 30-30 hitter even if the first 30-home-run season did not occur until a quarter-century after his retirement. (Babe Ruth's 54 homers in 1920 marked the first crossing of the 30-homer threshold, although Ruth had fallen one shy of that in the previous season, and Ned Williamson had hit 27 homers back in 1884.) Stovey was among the league leaders in both power-hitting (triples and home runs) and baserunning, and for a six-year stretch from 1886 to 1891 he averaged 14 triples, 11 home runs, and 74 stolen bases along with a .292/.380/.471 slash line, 130 runs scored, 83 RBI, and a 146 OPS+.

Like Bill Dahlen, Harry Stovey is considered to be an overlooked 19th-century baseball player worthy of the Hall of Fame. And even though Dahlen is not strictly, or even primarily, a 19th-century player, let's compare both Dahlen and Stovey to those Hall of Famers whose careers did occur exclusively or primarily during the late 1800s.

The following table ranks those players along with Dahlen and Stovey by bWAR while including their other significant qualitative statistics.

19th-Century Pre-Integration Era 2016 Candidates and All Hall of Fame Players Active During Candidates' 19th-Century Career, Ranked by bWAR
Player and Position	Slash Line	wOBA	bWAR	fWAR	OPS+	wRC+
Anson, Cap, 1B	.334/.394/.447	.393	93.9	91.2	142	134
Davis, George, SS	.295/.362/.405	.366	84.7	84.6	121	118
Connor, Roger, 1B	.316/.397/.486	.409	84.1	86.2	153	143
Brouthers, Dan, 1B	.342/.423/.519	.436	79.4	79.5	170	156
Dahlen, Bill, SS	.272/.358/.382	.357	75.2	77.5	110	108
Delahanty, Ed, LF	.346/.411/.505	.428	69.5	73.7	152	144
Clarke, Fred, LF	.312/.386/.429	.390	67.8	72.8	133	131
Beckley, Jake, 1B	.308/.361/.436	.376	64.5	61.2	125	119
Hamilton, Billy, CF	.344/.455/.432	.433	63.3	70.3	141	142
Burkett, Jesse, LF	.338/.415/.446	.411	62.9	66.6	140	137
Keeler, Willie, RF	.341/.388/.415	.383	54.0	55.7	127	124
McPhee, Bid, 2B	.272/.355/.373	.350	52.4	62.7	107	108
O'Rourke, Jim	.310/.352/.422	.360	51.3	52.1	134	127
Kelley, Joe, LF	.317/.402/.451	.405	50.6	54.9	134	130
Ewing, Buck, C	.303/.351/.456	.372	47.7	48.1	129	123
White, Deacon, 3B	.312/.346/.393	.343	45.5	41.1	127	121
Stovey, Harry, LF	.289/.361/.461	.380	45.1	54.9	144	132
Kelly, King, RF	.308/.368/.438	.375	44.3	45.1	139	131
Thompson, Sam, RF	.331/.384/.505	.409	44.3	44.1	147	136
Duffy, Hugh, CF	.326/.386/.451	.394	43.0	48.3	123	118
Jennings, Hughie, SS	.312/.391/.406	.385	42.3	44.9	118	119
Ward, John, SS	.275/.314/.341	.311	35.6	39.8	92	97
Hanlon, Ned, CF	.260/.325/.340	.317	18.0	19.2	102	104
McCarthy, Tommy, RF	.292/.364/.375	.358	16.1	23.3	102	105
Robinson, Wilbert, C	.273/.316/.346	.317	13.9	12.8	83	84

Because all of these players inducted into the Hall of Fame were elected by veterans committees, that election does not rely exclusively on players' performance records on the field. Both Ned Hanlon and Wilbert Robinson are more celebrated as managers, with Hanlon especially considered to be a landmark strategist credited with having invented the hit-and-run play; he is known as "the Father of Modern Baseball."

Meanwhile, John Ward, also known as John Montgomery Ward, was both a player—the only player in history to win at least 100 games as a pitcher and to collect at least 2000 hits as a batter—and a manager although he is also notable in baseball history for forming his own league, the Players' League, which lasted for only one season, 1890, although it had attracted many star players, including Harry Stovey, while offering a players' profit-sharing plan and no reserve clause, progressive business practices most atypical of the Gilded Age and subsequently ignored in baseball for several decades. Furthermore, Ward was an attorney (as was O'Rourke), most unusual at the time and even now, who after his playing days represented players and held front-office jobs.

On the other hand, Tommy McCarthy can consider himself to be the luckiest Hall of Fame player ever as no less than sabermetrics godfather Bill James considers him to be the worst player enshrined in the Hall.

The following table contains the JAWS statistics for these 19th-century players along with Hall of Fame Monitor and Hall of Fame Standards ratings. It is important to note that several players, notably John Ward, played at various positions throughout their careers, and although the statistics represent their aggregate record, Jay Jaffe's JAWS system places them at the position at which they had the most value. In addition, the JAWS Rank is for each player at the position at which he is identified and is not an overall ranking of all positions combined.

2016 19th-Century Pre-Integration Era Candidates, Qualitative Comparisons to 19th-Century Hall of Famers, All Positions (Ranked by JAWS)
Player and Position	No. of Yrs.	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Anson, Cap, 1B	27	1871	1897	93.9	41.7	67.8	4	186	64
Davis, George, SS	20	1890	1909	84.7	44.3	64.5	4	81	54
Connor, Roger, 1B	18	1880	1897	84.1	47.0	65.5	5	104	56
Brouthers, Dan, 1B	19	1879	1904	79.4	47.2	63.3	7	162	54
Delahanty, Ed, LF	16	1888	1903	69.5	48.5	59.0	6	234	65
Dahlen, Bill, SS	21	1891	1911	75.2	40.1	57.7	10	94	48
Hamilton, Billy, CF	14	1888	1901	63.3	42.6	53.0	13	154	51
Clarke, Fred, LF	21	1894	1915	67.8	36.1	52.0	12	86	50
Burkett, Jesse, LF	16	1890	1905	62.9	37.2	50.0	13	191	56
Beckley, Jake, 1B	20	1888	1907	61.5	29.8	45.7	26	84	50
Keeler, Willie, RF	19	1892	1910	54.0	36.2	45.1	26	189	49
Kelley, Joe, LF	17	1891	1908	50.6	36.2	43.4	23	98	52
McPhee, Bid, 2B	18	1882	1899	52.4	29.3	40.8	27	74	43
Jennings, Hughie	18	1891	1918	42.3	39.0	40.6	28	88	34
Ewing, Buck, C	18	1880	1897	47.7	30.5	39.1	15	35	38
Thompson, Sam, RF	15	1885	1906	44.3	33.2	38.7	36	174	47
Stovey, Harry, LF	14	1880	1893	45.1	31.1	38.1	37	86	34
O'Rourke, Jim, LF	23	1872	1904	51.3	24.2	37.8	39	84	49
Kelly, King, RF	16	1878	1893	44.3	31.1	37.7	42	64	45
Duffy, Hugh, CF	17	1888	1906	43.0	30.8	36.9	46	155	55
White, Deacon, 3B	20	1871	1890	45.5	26.0	35.7	36	47	35
Ward, John, SS	17	1878	1894	35.6	24.7	30.1	57	42*	28*
McCarthy, Tommy, RF	13	1884	1896	16.1	18.9	17.5	130	44	24
Hanlon, Ned, CF	13	1880	1892	18.0	14.2	16.1	163	12	12
Robinson, Wilbert, C	17	1886	1902	13.9	11.8	12.8	135	25	24

* Ratings for hitting statistics only. As a pitcher, Ward has a Hall of Fame Monitor rating of 92 and a Hall of Fame Standards rating of 43.

Compared to all of the 19th-century Hall of Fame players, it is easy to see why Harry Stovey was overlooked: Stovey is an excellent player but clearly on the bubble. Given the contemporary preference for hitters with power and speed, Stovey does appear attractive in that light, and as noted previously, he did post some impressive numbers to illustrate those qualities.

In terms of value, it is interesting to note that Stovey closely resembles Deacon White, who was the Pre-Integration Committee's sole player choice the last time it convened. White is almost a half-game higher in win value than Stovey, with Stovey making a slightly bigger impact with his peak seasons and with his JAWS rating although that may be marginal because even though White had a longer career, one that predates the formation of the National League in 1876 and thus marking the start of Major League Baseball as we know it today, Stovey is not far behind White in games played and plate appearances.

In his prime, White was a top hitter and run-producer; he led the league in batting twice and in RBI three times; his .312 career batting average is 86th all-time, tied with Albert Pujols and Hall of Famer Fred Clarke. More importantly, though, SABR's Nineteenth Century Committee had tagged White as 2010's Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend, which they had done subsequently for both Dahlen and Stovey, and which may bode well for both.

Harry Stovey is an excellent early example of a power-hitter who was also a base-stealer and run-scorer. That description also fits Michael "King" Kelly, who, thanks perhaps to better public relations—the 1889 song "Slide, Kelly, Slide" immortalized Kelly's basepath exploits and later named a 1927 baseball comedy film—was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1945. As illustrated in the two tables immediately above, Kelly is also very close to Stovey in value and other qualitative statistics, although in terms of the "fame" in the Hall of Fame, Kelly has name recognition while Stovey does not.

In sum, Harry Stovey's Hall of Fame credentials are truly debatable, strong without being convincing, impressive without being historic, an outstanding ballplayer but not an elite one when compared to 19th-century players already in the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame will not become richer for including him although it will not be degraded for doing so, but that is not an endorsement for including him. He should not be elected.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers: Live Ball

The two pitchers under consideration by the Pre-Integration Era Committee, Wes Ferrell and Bucky Walters, challenge conventional thinking about the value of pitchers. Specifically, Walters and especially Ferrell helped their cause with their hitting—Walters came up to the big leagues as a third baseman while Ferrell is considered the best-hitting pitcher of all time. Is this an aspect to a pitcher's career that merits serious consideration for the Hall of Fame?

In terms of value as expressed by Wins Above Replacement, the answer is yes because, as we will see below, both pitchers' offensive value contribute significantly to their overall value. Thus, the perception of what a pitcher contributes to helping his team win a game not only changes but prompts the question whether a pitcher should contribute more than what he does on the mound. Moreover, for the purposes of the Hall of Fame, do we need to revise perceptions of who is considered to be a Hall of Fame-caliber pitcher?

In the Expansion Era, that last question is academic for the American League—with the advent of the designated hitter, the pitcher almost never hit in the regular season until 1998, when interleague play began, and AL pitchers playing in a National League park had to bat for themselves. But even with four decades of the DH, the perception of the DH is that of an "incomplete" player, one whose contribution is limited to offensive value only, while that value, based exclusively on hitting (with marginal value for baserunning), is often expected to be greater than a fielding-position player as the designated hitter "only" bats—witness the struggles Edgar Martinez, one of the finest hitters of his or any other era, has had on the Hall of Fame ballot (even though Martinez did log a fair amount of time at third base).

The plight of the DH combined with the consideration of these two good-hitting pitchers forces us to look at the other side of the coin: Should pitchers be evaluated for more than "just" their pitching ability? At least those whose careers, such as Ferrell's and Walters's, occurred primarily before the DH era? Or is the pitcher's primary—or even exclusive—value his ability to pitch effectively, with any other value a non-essential bonus? To put it as a hypothetical, if Wes Ferrell gives up two runs in the top of an inning but hits a three-run home run in the bottom of the inning, is that equivalent to his preventing the two runs from scoring in the first place while then striking out with two runners on base?

Given the tradition-bound approach the Hall has taken toward designated hitters (and toward relief pitchers), it is unlikely that thinking about starting pitchers will change appreciably any time soon, particularly as there haven't been that many good-hitting pitchers who have also been outstanding pitchers. Of course, there was this Ruth guy who might have also been one of the best southpaw pitchers you've never heard about, although the Babe's pitching career and his outfield career—the one that netted him a lifetime .342 batting average and 714 dingers—did not have that much overlap. And while we consider Walter Johnson to be one of the greatest pitchers of all time, the Big Train posted a career .235/.274/.342 slash line with 24 home runs while in 1925, at the age of 37, he batted an astounding .433 in 107 plate appearances (rounding out the slash line are a .455 on-base percentage and a .577 slugging percentage).

Let's start by looking at the overall value produced by Wes Ferrell and Bucky Walters. Here are the twelve Hall of Fame starting pitchers associated with the Pre-Integration Era whose careers overlapped significantly with Ferrell, whose career began in 1927, and with Walters, whose career began in 1931. This table ranks them by bWAR, with other qualitative statistics, including fWAR, listed alongside it.

Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers and 2016 Starting Pitcher Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR
Pitcher	W-L (S), ERA	bWAR	fWAR	ERA+	ERA–	FIP–
Lyons, Ted	260–230 (25), 3.67	71.5	57.9	118	85	95
Ruffing, Red	273–225 (18), 3.80	70.4	69.7	109	91	96
Hubbell, Carl	253–154 (33), 2.98	67.5	54.9	130	77	89
Feller, Bob	266–162 (22), 3.25	63.6	61.7	122	82	89
Newhouser, Hal	207–150 (26), 3.06	63.0	62.9	130	76	81
Ferrell, Wes	193–128 (13), 4.04	61.6	50.8	116	87	93
Wynn, Early	300–244 (16), 3.54	61.3	67.7	107	94	97
Vance, Dazzy	197–140 (12), 3.24	59.9	59.1	125	81	78
Walters, Bucky	198–160 (4), 3.30	54.2	32.1	116	87	99
Grimes, Burleigh	270–212 (18), 3.53	53.0	58.0	108	94	96
Hoyt, Waite	237–182 (53), 3.59	51.8	46.8	112	89	93
Dean, Dizzy	150–83 (31), 3.02	42.8	42.4	131	77	78
Gomez, Lefty	189–102 (10), 3.34	38.4	30.7	125	79	94
Haines, Jesse	210–158 (11), 3.64	32.6	32.4	109	91	98

Ranked by bWAR, and using the threshold of 60 wins, Ferrell merits serious discussion as a Hall of Fame pitcher while Walters lands on the bubble for discussion. However, fWAR tells a different story—Ferrell falls down to the low end of the bubble while Walters falls out of the discussion. Moreover, some of these pitchers already in the Hall of Fame look to be suspect, as has been mentioned previously.

Those twelve Hall of Fame pitchers along with Ferrell and Walters are ranked by JAWS in the table below along with their ratings for the Hall of Fame Monitor and the Hall of Fame Standards. Also included are the JAWS statistics for all pitchers in the Hall of Fame.

2016 Pre-Integration Era Starting Pitcher Candidates, Qualitative Comparisons to Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers (Ranked by JAWS)
Pitcher	No. of Years	From	To	bWAR	WAR7	JAWS	JAWS Rank	HoF Mon. (≈100)	HoF Std. (≈50)
Ave of 62 HoF P	NA	NA	NA	73.9	50.3	62.1	NA	NA	NA
Ferrell, Wes	15	1927	1941	61.6	55.0	58.3	39	75	22
Feller, Bob	18	1936	1956	63.6	51.8	57.7	40	180	51
Newhouser, Hal	17	1939	1955	63.0	52.4	57.7	41	140	34
Hubbell, Carl	16	1928	1943	67.5	47.3	57.4	44	174	51
Lyons, Ted	21	1923	1946	71.5	40.9	56.2	48	65	30
Ruffing, Red	22	1924	1947	70.4	41.3	55.8	50	130	38
Vance, Dazzy	16	1915	1935	59.9	49.2	54.6	56	89	35
Wynn, Early	23	1939	1963	61.3	38.6	50.0	70	141	44
Walters, Bucky	19	1931	1950	54.2	43.0	48.6	77	104	27
Grimes, Burleigh	19	1916	1934	53.0	40.9	47.0	90	115	38
Hoyt, Waite	21	1918	1938	51.8	34.0	42.9	120	94	32
Dean, Dizzy	12	1930	1947	44.9	42.8	43.9	112	112	33
Gomez, Lefty	14	1930	1943	38.4	35.6	37.0	178	128	34
Haines, Jesse	19	1918	1937	32.6	21.9	27.3	300	64	27

Ranked by JAWS, Wes Ferrell nudges ahead of celebrated Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, and Carl Hubbell. But as JAWS, a derivative of bWAR, also incorporates a pitcher's offensive and defensive value, let's break down that valuation to its component form to better assess these pitchers' specific value.

The following table lists the twelve Hall of Fame pitchers along with Ferrell, and Walters by a ranking of their pitching bWAR while also showing their batting bWAR (which also includes their defensive bWAR) as well as pitching and batting fWAR and other qualitative statistics.

Qualitative Statistics, Broken Out for Pitching and Batting Value for Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers and Starting Pitcher Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR(P)
Pitcher	bWAR(P)	bWAR(B)	fWAR(P)	fWAR(B)	ERA+	OPS+
Hubbell, Carl	67.8	–0.3	56.5	–1.6	130	18
Lyons, Ted	67.2	4.4	54.6	3.3	118	45
Feller, Bob	65.2	–1.7	62.6	–0.9	122	15
Vance, Dazzy	62.5	–2.6	61.6	–2.5	125	10
Newhouser, Hal	60.4	2.6	60.7	2.2	130	36
Ruffing, Red	55.4	15.0	56.1	13.6	109	81
Hoyt, Waite	53.3	–1.5	48.9	–2.1	112	20
Wynn, Early	51.6	9.7	58.6	9.1	107	54
Ferrell, Wes	48.8	12.8	38.6	12.2	116	100
Grimes, Burleigh	46.9	6.1	52.3	5.7	108	58
Walters, Bucky	46.4	7.8	36.8	–2.3	116	69
Gomez, Lefty	43.1	–4.6	34.6	–3.9	125	–7
Dean, Dizzy	42.7	2.2	40.9	1.5	131	43
Haines, Jesse	35.7	–3.1	36.2	–3.8	109	12

bWAR(P): Wins Above Replacement based on the pitcher's pitching record, as calculated by Baseball Reference.

bWAR(B): Wins Above Replacement based on the pitcher's batting record, as calculated by Baseball Reference. Note: This value also incorporates Wins Above Replacement based on the pitcher's defensive record.

fWAR(P): Wins Above Replacement based on the pitcher's pitching record, as calculated by FanGraphs.

fWAR(B): Wins Above Replacement based on the pitcher's batting record, as calculated by FanGraphs.

Now let's rank those same pitchers using their bWAR(B), or their Wins Above Replacement using their offensive (and fielding) value.

Qualitative Statistics, Broken Out for Pitching and Batting Value for Pre-Integration Era Hall of Fame Starting Pitchers and Starting Pitcher Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by bWAR(B)
Pitcher	bWAR(P)	bWAR(B)	fWAR(P)	fWAR(B)	ERA+	OPS+
Ruffing, Red	55.4	15.0	56.1	13.6	109	81
Ferrell, Wes	48.8	12.8	38.6	12.2	116	100
Wynn, Early	51.6	9.7	58.6	9.1	107	54
Walters, Bucky	46.4	7.8	36.8	–2.3	116	69
Grimes, Burleigh	46.9	6.1	52.3	5.7	108	58
Lyons, Ted	67.2	4.4	54.6	3.3	118	45
Newhouser, Hal	60.4	2.6	60.7	2.2	130	36
Dean, Dizzy	42.7	2.2	40.9	1.5	131	43
Hubbell, Carl	67.8	–0.3	56.5	–1.6	130	18
Hoyt, Waite	53.3	–1.5	48.9	–2.1	112	20
Feller, Bob	65.2	–1.7	62.6	–0.9	122	15
Vance, Dazzy	62.5	–2.6	61.6	–2.5	125	10
Haines, Jesse	35.7	–3.1	36.2	–3.8	109	12
Gomez, Lefty	43.1	–4.6	34.6	–3.9	125	–7

Considered solely as an offensive force, both Ferrell and Walters rise to the top of the list, although had we used offensive value from FanGraphs' version of WAR, Walters plunges to the bottom of the list. Also helped substantially by bWAR(B) is Red Ruffing, whose overall WAR places him in the near-elite category (and there is less than one win's worth of value between the Baseball Reference and the FanGraphs version of WAR).

Continuing our examination of the offensive worth of the pitchers in this sample, the following table lists the pitchers' representative offensive statistics including slash line, hits, home runs, runs scored, runs batted in, and sacrifice hits (bunts), ranked by on-base percentage.

Batting Statistics for 2016 Pre-Integration Era Hall Pitchers and 2016 Pitcher Candidates on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era Ballot, Ranked by On-Base Percentage
Position Player	Slash Line	H	HR	R	RBI	SH
Ferrell, Wes	.280/.351/.446	329	38	175	208	40
Ruffing, Red	.269/.306/.389	521	36	207	273	43
Walters, Bucky	.243/.286/.344	477	23	227	234	64
Grimes, Burleigh	.248/.282/.306	380	2	157	168	76
Wynn, Early	.214/.274/.285	365	17	136	173	52
Lyons, Ted	.233/.270/.285	364	5	162	149	83
Newhouser, Hal	.201/.267/.233	201	2	70	81	72
Dean, Dizzy	.225/.235/.301	161	8	76	76	39
Hoyt, Waite	.198/.223/.235	255	0	96	100	91
Vance, Dazzy	.150/.219/.198	146	7	68	75	55
Feller, Bob	.151/.214/.211	193	8	99	99	100
Hubbell, Carl	.191/.212/.227	246	4	95	101	75
Haines, Jesse	.186/.208/.218	209	3	76	79	59
Gomez, Lefty	.147/.194/.159	133	0	59	58	68

Ruffing's slash line looks like Ichiro Suzuki's over the last few seasons while Ferrell's looks like what Ichiro would like to aspire to now—both lines are hardly what you would expect from a pitcher—while Walters's, Grimes's, and to an extent Wynn's and Lyons's are not too far behind.

And even though the best-hitting pitchers' offensive value can be substantial, is it, when combined with the pitcher's pitching value, enough to push a borderline candidate such as Wes Ferrell or Bucky Walters across the threshold and into the Hall of Fame? To answer that, we need to examine their pitching records.

Wes Ferrell

After cups of coffee with the Cleveland Indians in 1927 and 1928, Wes Ferrell made the club as a full-time player in 1929, his age-21 season, and promptly won 21 games in 43 appearances and 25 starts, with five of those wins in relief; he also saved five games. That marked Ferrell's first 20-win season; he would go on to win at least 20 games for the next three consecutive seasons, totaling six 20-win campaigns in his career, including a career-high 25 wins in 1930 and again in 1935, when he led the American League in that category while pitching for the Boston Red Sox.

That 1935 season saw Ferrell the runner-up to the Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg for the AL Most Valuable Player award; Greenberg led the league in home runs (36) and RBI (168) while posting a .328/.411/.628 slash line, although retrospectively Ferrell generated 11.0 in total bWAR against Greenberg's 7.7; 8.4 wins came from Ferrell's pitching, with 2.6 wins produced by his bat—Ferrell posted a gaudy .347/.427/.533 slash line from 52 hits, including 7 home runs, and 21 walks—against only 16 strikeouts—in 179 plate appearances while scoring 25 runs and driving in 32.

Ferrell had finished eighth in MVP voting the previous year, his first in Boston following his trade from Cleveland resulting from a contract dispute, his only other year with a top-ten finish in MVP voting. In 1934, he won "only" 14 games but that was against just five losses for a career-best .737 winning percentage although his 181 innings pitched was the first time since he became a full-time pitcher that his innings count dropped below 200. Ferrell was a workhorse who topped 200 innings pitched twice, including two years with at least 300 innings pitched while falling 3.1 innings short of that plateau in 1930. He led the league in innings pitched in three consecutive years (1935 to 1937), in games started in back-to-back seasons (1935–1936), and in complete games four times.

On the other hand, Ferrell also led the AL in hits given up three times, in home runs allowed once, and in walks once. While he had seven seasons of 100 or more strikeouts, with a season-high of 143 in 1930, he matched that with seven seasons of 100 or more walks, coincidentally all the same years in which he struck out at least 100 batters. For his career, Ferrell issued 1040 walks against only 985 strikeouts, and combined with 2845 hits surrendered in 2623 innings pitched, it is no surprise that his lifetime WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) is a lofty 1.481. Again not surprisingly, all those baserunners led to many opponents' scoring chances—with an earned run average of 4.04, Wes Ferrell would be the first pitcher in the Hall of Fame with an ERA over 4.00 should he be elected. What is surprising, though, is that Ferrell didn't surrender as many home-run balls as might be expected, although he did serve up a league-leading 25 gophers in 1937, a season that saw him post his highest ERA (4.90) and games lost (19) since becoming a starter. Still, with his low strikeout totals and high walk totals, Ferrell holds a 4.23 FIP (fielding-independent pitching, which factors the Three True Outcome statistics—walks, strikeouts, home runs—controlled by the pitcher).

Yet Ferrell won 193 games against 128 losses for an excellent .601 winning percentage, posting four 20-win seasons in Cleveland and two in Boston. As I have noted previously, wins are not a reliable measurement of a pitcher's effectiveness, let alone for measuring his Hall of Fame legacy, as they are too much of a team-dependent statistic. For example, during his ten-year peak, from 1929 to 1938, Ferrell received an average of 5.7 runs in support from his teammates—and he can include himself as a hitter in that mix—while the league average was 4.9 runs. Ferrell notched 49 "cheap wins," or wins in starts that were not quality starts (defined as pitching at least 6 innings while allowing three or fewer earned runs), which account for a quarter of his overall wins, not surprising for a pitcher for whom just over half of his 323 starts were quality starts.

Ferrell did have a Hall of Fame kind of day on April 29, 1931, when he not only pitched a no-hitter against the visiting St. Louis Browns but helped his cause at the plate by belting a home run and a double that drove in four runs in the Indians' 9–0 victory. Ferrell walked three Browns while Indians shortstop Bill Hunnefield committed three errors, but Ferrell did strike out eight batters—on the other hand, this is a Browns team that lost 91 games in a 154-game schedule in 1931; however, in fairness, Ferrell did have to face Browns' left fielder Goose Goslin, who was still in his prime in 1931 while on his way to the Hall of Fame (he was a veterans committee pick in 1968); Ferrell walked Goslin once but retired him in his other three plate appearances. Another Hall of Famer Ferrell faced that day was his own brother, catcher Rick Ferrell, who was later inducted into the Hall of Fame by the veterans committee in 1984—although Rick Ferrell is one of the more dubious inductees.

Ferrell's pitching and batting feat was matched, if not eclipsed, 40 years later when Rick Wise of the Philadelphia Phillies no-hit the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, 1971. Wise went one batter over the minimum with a sixth-inning walk to Dave Concepcion while he struck out three Reds including marquee hitters George Foster and Lee May; that Reds team, an early Big Red Machine under Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson, included future Hall of Famers Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, as well as all-time hits leader Pete Rose, whose woes with the Hall of Fame are so well-known that they have been spoofed in a recent television commercial for Skechers shoes. However, the 1971 Cincinnati Reds finished fourth in the National League West Division, two games below .500. Meanwhile, Wise, who did pitch his no-hitter in Cincinnati, may have eclipsed Wes Ferrell by hitting two home runs, driving in three of the four Phillies' runs; however, Wise was ultimately a league-average pitcher (a career 101 ERA+) who was one-and-done on his only Hall of Fame ballot appearance in 1988.

As we have seen, Wes Ferrell, in terms of overall value as defined by bWAR and its derivative JAWS, merits legitimate discussion for the Hall of Fame, although, as we have also seen, the component parts of that overall value, pitching and batting, combine to put Ferrell into the discussion. Simply as a pitcher, Ferrell barely makes it onto the bubble with a 48.8 bWAR for pitching value—while FanGraphs calculates him at a solid ten wins below that. Ferrell did have six seasons of 20 or more wins as he approached 200 wins for his career, but as noted above, wins are not an indication of how effective is a pitcher but rather how effective is his team. If Ferrell gives up four runs a game, as his ERA indicates, but his team scores five runs to support him—and Ferrell could very well have contributed to that run support—is he still an effective pitcher?

So, for Ferrell, it boils down to batting, as even FanGraphs tags him with more than 12 wins above a replacement player for his hitting prowess. And for the 16 members of the Pre-Integration Era, they need to decide whether the novelty of Ferrell's being one of the greatest-hitting pitchers of all time combined with his decent though hardly exceptional pitching record is sufficient to put him into the Hall of Fame.

What would be fascinating is to know what the two pitchers on the committee, Bert Blyleven and Phil Niekro, think about Wes Ferrell as a pitcher and especially as a hitter. In 514 plate appearances, Blyleven collected 59 hits, all but seven of those singles (he hit seven doubles), for a .131/.144/.146 slash line, although to be fair Blyleven actually hit in only six of his 22 seasons, three with the Minnesota Twins just before the designated hitter rule was implemented, and three during his brief stint in the National League with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Niekro, however, may not have that excuse—his hitting took place exclusively in the National League with the Atlanta Braves, with whom he played for 21 of his 24-year career. (Niekro's stint in the AL, which occurred over the course of four seasons, was in the DH era; he never came to the plate as an American League pitcher.) Niekro posted a .169/.183/.211 career slash line, collecting 260 hits in 1707 plate appearances with 42 doubles, one triple, and seven home runs, including two homers in 1968, a stellar year for pitching—think Denny McLain and especially Bob Gibson—that saw the pitching mound lowered to its current 10-inch height the next season to facilitate offense. Would Blyleven and Niekro be more impressed by Wes Ferrell's batting prowess as a pitcher? Or perhaps even less impressed, possibly with a touch of jealousy?

In any event, Wes Ferrell is an anomaly—not exceptional purely as a pitcher and not exceptional enough as a batter beyond the novelty of being a pitcher who hit so well. If anything, considering Ferrell prompts two realizations. One underscores how the Hall of Fame has traditionally evaluated legacy in conventional terms, meaning that it considers roles as they have been evaluated historically. The other realization is a contemporary concept, and that is the need to regard Wins Above Replacement judiciously and within the context of a player's overall performance record.

Yes, Wes Ferrell is unusual enough, with talent both as a pitcher and as a hitter, to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and modern metrics, specifically WAR, suggest that the combined value of those talents puts him into the conversation as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He is certainly one of the rarest in that regard, although not necessarily unique—Red Ruffing, whose career coincided with Ferrell's, was also a great-hitting pitcher, and his career was contemporaneous with Ferrell's. Ruffing also had a longer career than did Ferrell, enabling Ruffing to compile a conspicuous 70.4 bWAR (55.4 as a pitcher and 15.0 as a hitter) along with 273 career wins, with all but 42 of those coming with the dynastic New York Yankees of the 1930s, with whom Ruffing earned six World Series rings while posting a 7–2 postseason win-loss record with a 2.63 ERA. By contrast, Ferrell never made the postseason.

Yet Ruffing's career 3.80 ERA is the highest earned run average of any pitcher in the Hall of Fame—but Ferrell's 4.04 would eclipse that as he became the first Hall of Fame pitcher with an ERA over 4.00. Is that a boundary too rooted in convention to cross? Both Ferrell and Ruffing did play in a very high-offense era—but so did all the other Hall of Fame pitchers from this era that we have examined, and even Bucky Walters, to whom we will turn shortly, posted a career ERA seven-tenths of a run better than Ferrell's while winning about the same amount of games.

All of this deliberation on my part masks (or not) a conflict. On the one hand, Wes Ferrell is singular enough and qualitatively distinctive enough to be that unusual Hall of Famer whose presence may force a re-examination of conventional expectations of a Hall of Famer; that in turn may enhance consideration for non-traditional, role-emphatic positions such as designated hitters and relief pitchers, which, like it or not, are now part of the game and have been for some time, and thus deserve serious evaluation with respect to legacy.

On the other hand, would that be rewarding Ferrell for excelling at the secondary aspect of his position and not necessarily at the primary aspect, which is to be an elite pitcher? Put another way, and to use the hoary example of the "big game," would you hand the ball to Dazzy Vance or Ted Lyons or even Bucky Walters—let alone Bob Feller, Carl Hubbell, or Hal Newhouser—to win that game, or would you hand it to Wes Ferrell, hoping that he may pitch well enough and could possibly provide some offense?

I would not. Wes Ferrell is a distinctive ballplayer, even an exotic one, but he is not a Hall of Famer.

Bucky Walters

Continuing with our trend of good-hitting pitchers, Bucky Walters actually came up to the Majors as a substitute infielder, third base and a little second base, for the Boston Braves in 1931 and didn't even pitch his first big-league game until 1934, when he was a mid-season purchase by the Philadelphia Phillies. (In the interim, he had played in 1933 and the start of 1934 for Boston's cross-town American League counterpart, the Red Sox, from whom Philadelphia purchased him.)

With the Phillies, Walters became a full-time pitcher although he still played in the field occasionally; in his career, he logged 184 games at third base with another 16 at second and a half-dozen in the outfield. The Phillies were a dismal team during the time Walters toiled for them, with the 89 losses they posted in 1935 representing the best season they had, and Walters didn't help his own cause as he struggled with his control, issuing more walks than strikeouts during his tenure in Philadelphia while more or less keeping a .500 winning percentage amidst his team's haplessness, and although he led the Majors in losses in 1936 with 21, against 11 wins, he also managed to be in a seven-way tie for the most shutouts, four, in the National League, pitching one of those at home—no small feat in the hitters' paradise called the Baker Bowl that the Phillies called home.

But when he was traded in mid-1938 to the Cincinnati Reds, Walters, who had begun the season in Philadelphia with a 4–8 win-loss record and a 5.23 ERA, albeit with nine complete games in 12 starts including one shutout, came into his own. He finished the season with an 11–6 record and a 3.69 ERA for the Reds, adding 11 more complete games and two more shutouts, and then blossomed the following year.

In 1939, Bucky Walters won the pitching Triple Crown when he led the NL in wins (27), earned run average (2.29), and strikeouts (137; tied with Claude Passeau); Walters also led the league in innings pitched (319.0), games started (36), and complete games (31) while, retrospectively, also being tops in ERA+ (170) and WHIP (1.125). It was a milestone season for Walters, who handily won the NL's Most Valuable Player award, and retrospective analysis reaffirms this: The MVP runner-up, the St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman Johnny Mize, had another monster year and generated a 7.9 bWAR, but Walters's bWAR overall was 9.8, and "only" 8.2 of that was based on his pitching prowess: At the plate, Walters posted a .325/.357/.433 slash line with 39 hits in 131 plate appearances, smacking eight doubles, one triple, and one home run in the process, while scoring and driving in 16 runs each; all that was good for a 1.6 bWAR at the plate.

Walters led the Reds to the NL pennant, although Cincinnati got swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series, with Walters going the distance for a Game Two loss as the Yankees shut out the Reds, while in Game Four he came on in relief in the top of the eighth inning with the Reds up 4–2; he threw a clean slate that frame but in the next frame he allowed two runs, one unearned, as the Yankees tied the game. Then he gave up three runs, two unearned, in the tenth, leading to the final 7–4 score and the Yankees' World Series victory, as the Reds' sloppy play—one error in the ninth and three in the tenth—bit Walters.

In 1940, Walters captured two-thirds of the pitching Triple Crown by leading the NL in wins (22) and ERA (2.48) while placing fifth in strikeouts (115), which netted him third-place in MVP voting. His Reds teammate Frank McCormick, also on this Pre-Integration Era ballot, won the award; as noted in our discussion about McCormick, the Cardinals' Johnny Mize was the most valuable player in the NL that season as determined retrospectively by WAR (although long before the statistic was invented observers had been critical of the selection), as Mize's value is calculated at 7.4 wins against McCormick's 5.7, though Walters is a worthy candidate with a 6.7 bWAR, with 6.4 wins derived from his pitching.

McCormick and Walters led the Reds to another NL pennant and the World Series, this time against the Detroit Tigers—and this time the Reds prevailed in a seven-game series. In Game Two, Walters tossed a three-hitter to lead the Reds to a 5–3 victory that evened the Series, although he allowed four bases on balls, including two to lead off the game, both of which came around to score, while a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth led to the third Tigers run. On the other side of the ledger, Walters doubled and scored in the bottom of the fourth inning. Then, with the Reds facing elimination in Game Six, Walters hurled a 4–0 shutout at the Tigers, scattering five hits while overcoming two walks and two Reds' errors as he drove in one run on a fielder's choice and another on a solo home run. That long fly gave him two hits, both extra-base, in seven World Series at-bats; during the regular season, Walters's plate performance had fallen off considerably from the previous season as he posted a .205/.231/.256 slash line, although he did plate 18 runs, his season-high as a full-time pitcher—as a position player, he had driven in 56 runs in 1934, split between the Red Sox and the Phillies.

Walters had another fine season in 1941, posting a 19–15 win-loss record with a 2.83 ERA as he led the NL in complete games (27) and innings pitched (302.0), the third consecutive year in which he led the league in each category; however, he slumped at the plate with a .189/.239/.245 line. For the next two seasons, Walters was a .500 pitcher, his ERA swelling in 1943 to 3.54 as he issued 109 walks against only 80 strikeouts, but he regrouped impressively in 1944 as he led the NL in wins (23) against only eight losses while lowering his ERA more than a run to 2.40 despite walking 10 more batters (87) than he struck out. He finished fifth in MVP voting, the third and last time he finished within the top five, while his batting performance continued its steady climb: Walters generated a .280/.330/.318 line, his .280 batting average the runner-up for his career best.

But as Walters entered his age-36 season in 1945, he was in decline; he finished his career as a .500 starting pitcher, taking over the Reds' helm as a player-manager in the middle of the 1948 season and as manager-only through 1949; Walters's managing record is an undistinguished 81–123 during this period as just barely kept the Reds ahead of the Chicago Cubs for the NL cellar. In 1950, he returned with the Boston Braves for one game in which he pitched four innings in relief, giving up five hits, two walks, and two earned runs, before retiring.

Bucky Walters's move to Philadelphia made his career: In a seven-year peak from 1938 (which includes its start with Red Sox) to 1944, he averaged 19 wins per season against 12 losses while posting a 2.87 ERA, a 126 ERA+, and a 4.5 bWAR with an average of 25 complete games and four shutouts each year. As a hitter, pitching exclusively except for playing center field for one inning in 1942, Walters generated a .244/.286/.327 slash line, good for a 71 OPS+, while averaging five doubles, one home run, 12 runs scored, and 13 RBI each season.

A six-time All-Star and the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1939, when he won the pitching Triple Crown, Bucky Walters was a fine pitcher, one who could hit and who had an excellent seven-year peak. But apart from that stellar 1939 season, nothing about Walters's career suggests that he is an elite pitcher, or, unlike in the case of Wes Ferrell, that his hitting prowess was exceptional enough to warrant a second look. Indeed, given the dramatic disparity between how Baseball Reference and FanGraphs values his offensive contribution, Walters's exploits at the plate are perhaps a nominal factor in his overall evaluation. Bucky Walters is not a Hall of Fame pitcher.

Executive Decisions: Sam Breadon

As the president and majority owner of the St. Louis Cardinals for more than a quarter-century, from 1920 to 1947, Sam Breadon, who made his fortune as a Pierce-Arrow automobile dealer in St. Louis, oversaw the rise of the Cardinals from a mediocre National League team to a dynasty epitomized by the on-field antics of the 1934 Cardinals team, dubbed the "Gas House Gang," whose rough-and-tumble zaniness belied the fact that behind future Hall of Famers Dizzy Dean, Leo Durocher, Frankie Frisch, and Joe Medwick those Cardinals won the World Series.

Under Breadon, the Cardinals won the first six of their eleven World Series championships while winning the NL pennant (and thus advancing to the World Series) another three times. The Cardinals' eleven World Series titles are second only to the New York Yankees in baseball history. Also under Breadon, Branch Rickey became the Cardinals' "business manager," what is known today as the general manager, and one of Hall of Famer Rickey's greatest accomplishments in this role, started in St. Louis, was the development of the "farm system," or the acquisition and fostering of minor-league teams to cultivate players who could ascend to the parent club.



Sam Breadon (right) and Branch Rickey plan the destiny of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Players who came up through the farm system for the Cardinals include Hall of Famers Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and Enos Slaughter—as well as Marty Marion, in consideration for the Hall on this ballot—while other Hall of Famers playing for the Cardinals under Breadon's watch include, in addition to Dean, Durocher (whose Hall of Fame credentials came later as a manager), Frisch, and Medwick, Jim Bottomley, Chick Hafey, Rogers Hornsby, and Johnny Mize—although Bottomley and Hafey have been considered to be marginal picks engineered into the Hall through the machinations of Frankie Frisch.

In addition, Hornsby, one of baseball's greatest-ever hitters whose two batting Triple Crowns came with the Cardinals, managed the Cardinals to their first World Series victory in 1926, defeating the powerhouse New York Yankees in seven games. The deciding Game Seven, played in Yankee Stadium, entered the annals of baseball lore, particularly the seventh inning, when the Yankees, trailing by a run, loaded the bases with two outs against Jesse Haines (another Hall of Famer, although he is one of the more dubious pitchers ever inducted). Out to the mound came Hornsby, motioning for the "grizzled veteran," 39-year-old Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander, to come in from the bullpen.

Alexander had already notched two complete-game victories in Games Two and Six, and adding to the legend is that Alexander may have been hung over from celebrating his win from the day before. Facing Tony Lazzeri, Alexander allowed a long fly that hooked foul before striking him out; then he blanked the Yankees for the next two innings to record the save and preserve the Cardinals' first world championship. (Bizarrely, Babe Ruth, whom Alexander had walked after retiring the first two Yankees in the ninth, tried to steal second base and was thrown out to end the game and the Series.) This iconic moment was captured in the 1952 movie The Winning Team, a gauzy biopic in which no less than Ronald Reagan portrayed Alexander, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1938.

Breadon insisted on hiring and overseeing his on-field managers, which invited conflicts that resulted in his trading Hornsby to the New York Giants for Frankie Frisch; Frisch became a player manager in 1933 and led the Cardinals to World Series victory the following year. Other managers Breadon hired during his term included Eddie Dyer, Bill McKechnie, Gabby Street, and Billy Southworth, all of whom except McKechnie won world championships under Breadon, with McKechnie and Southworth eventually entering the Hall of Fame.

The proliferation of radio broadcasting coincided with the ascendancy of the Cardinals under Breadon, which resulted in the Cardinals developing a rabid following throughout much of the Midwest, a loyal fanbase that continues to this day, while the easy-going appeal of home-grown superstar Stan Musial made him into a folk hero. However, when Jackie Robinson began to play in 1947, several Cardinals players intended to go on strike to protest playing with an African-American. Breadon learned of this and, after consultation with National League President Ford Frick, confronted the team with the threat of suspension, backed by Frick. That ended the protest.

Breadon's only possible misstep involved his attempt to build a new stadium for the Cardinals, who had been playing at Sportsman's Park, the home field for the St. Louis Browns, although the Cardinals under Breadon had since eclipsed the Browns in terms of prestige and popularity. Breadon had earmarked $5 million for a new stadium but was unable to find suitable land, and with the threat of a substantial tax bill looming for the set-aside, tax attorney Fred Saigh persuaded Breadon, by now terminally ill with prostate cancer, to sell the team to avoid tax penalties. Saigh and another investor bought the team, but following Breadon's death in 1949, the sale was deemed to have been a tax dodge that put the team onto the market once again. The Cardinals looked to be moving to Houston, Texas, before brewing magnate "Gussie" Busch bought the team in 1953 and thus kept the Cardinals in St. Louis.

Under Sam Breadon's stewardship, the St. Louis Cardinals became one of the storied franchises in the National League, and indeed in Major League baseball, winning six World Series and nine NL pennants, with a number of the managers who led those teams being elected to the Hall of Fame. Breadon's business manager Branch Rickey revolutionized the acquisition and cultivation of baseball talent through implementation of the farm system of minor-league teams feeding talent to the major-league team. Either through the farm system or other means of acquisition, the Cardinals featured several players who were later elected to the Hall of Fame, from Dizzy Dean and Joe Medwick and Enos Slaughter to Rogers Hornsby and Johnny Mize and Stan Musial, perhaps the most beloved Cardinal whose fame and popularity helped to make Cardinals fans among the most fiercely loyal in baseball.

It is surprising that Sam Breadon has not been elected to the Hall of Fame yet, as so many of those who worked for him both on and off the field during his tenure have already been inducted. As we will see with the other two executives on the 2016 Pre-Integration Era ballot, it is hard to quantify what an owner or front-office executive truly produces for a club, but in the case of the rise of the Cardinals under Breadon, it is hard to miss the association. Sam Breadon is a Hall of Famer.

Executive Decisions: Garry Herrmann

The president of the Cincinnati Reds during the first quarter of the 20th century, August "Garry" Herrmann was also the president of the National Baseball Commission, the precursor to the position of the baseball commissioner, during much of his time with the Reds. Already a manual laborer by his teens because of the death of his father, Herrmann went on to own a legal newspaper serving Ohio's Hamilton County while becoming a cog in Cincinnati's corrupt political machine run by George "Boss" Cox. With Cox and others, Herrmann became part-owner of the Cincinnati Reds, and although Herrmann himself was not a baseball fan, he became the head of baseball operations for the club from 1902 to 1927.

Under Herrmann's stewardship, the Reds were largely an unexceptional team. From 1902 to 1918, they finished as high as third place (in a National League of eight teams) twice, in 1904, when the Reds won 88 games and lost 65, and in 1918, when the team posted a 68–60 win-loss record in a season shortened because of the First World War. Otherwise, the Reds endured ten losing seasons between 1902 and 1918, finishing last once and next-to-last three times.

However, the Reds' fortunes changed in 1919: In a shortened, 140-game season, the Reds, behind batting stars Heinie Groh and Edd Roush and ace pitchers Dutch Ruether and Slim Sallie, won 96 games, nine more than the New York Giants, to move onto the World Series against the Chicago White Sox. Ah, but for those who have seen John Sayles's excellent film Eight Men Out, you know that this Chicago team was the infamous "Black Sox," eight of whose members were accused of consorting with gamblers to deliberately lose the World Series, which the White Sox eventually did, losing five games in the best-of-nine series to Cincinnati.

Led by hitting sensation "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and future Hall of Famers Eddie Collins and Ray Schalk, and by star pitchers Eddie Cicotte and Lefty Williams, the White Sox were the favorites to win the Series, but crucial contributors Cicotte, Jackson, and Williams were among the "eight men out"; thus, we may never know whether the Reds could have defeated the White Sox without the help of eight Sox themselves. (And although the nickname "Black Sox" would seem to suggest players tarnished by the scandal, it may refer to consequences from earlier in the season: Notoriously parsimonious White Sox owner Charles Comiskey reputedly refused to pay for the laundering of the players' uniforms, demanding that the players pay for that themselves, with the players protesting by refusing to do so.)

Curiously enough, Herrmann had been responsible for legitimizing the American League after its inception in 1901, and when, after the first modern "World's Series" (as it was called for a short time) between the two Major Leagues in 1903, the 1904 NL champions the New York Giants refused to play the AL champion Boston Americans in the next World's Series, it was Herrmann who brokered the agreement that codified the Series and led to his being called "the Father of the World Series."

Working with AL President Ban Johnson, Herrmann had developed the National Agreement in 1903, which established the National Commission to govern Major League Baseball's operations; the Commission was a three-member panel comprising the AL president, the NL president, and the mutually agreed-upon president of one of the existing baseball clubs, which just happened to be Herrmann, the president of the Cincinnati Reds. Following the Giants' refusal to play in the World's Series in 1904, Herrmann managed to secure a mutual agreement between the leagues to honor annual postseason play under the auspices of the National Commission, a practice that had continued despite the Great Depression and two world wars until the 1994 work stoppage that halted baseball operations.

However, Herrmann faced serious challenges in 1919. First, the then-NL president, John Heydler, refused to support Herrmann's re-appointment to the Commission, and then the Black Sox scandal threw the conduct of baseball into a glaring spotlight—one not helped by Herrmann's also being the president of the club that won the World Series. Herrmann was not involved in the scandal, of course, but it had shaken him—he resigned in early 1920, and because his position was never filled, the National Commission was finally dissolved, to be replaced by a single commissioner of baseball, the model that remains in place today.

The Cincinnati Reds never returned to the World Series under Herrmann's presidency although they had three second-place finishes from 1920 to 1927, finishing just two games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in 1926 (who, as we saw with Sam Breadon, won their first world championship in a memorable World Series). Herrmann resigned for health reasons from the club following the 1927 season, and he died at age 71 in 1931. Herrmann was forward-thinking—he investigated the possibility of installing lights in a stadium for night baseball, and although that idea didn't get off the blocks, it is interesting that the first night game in Major League history did occur at Cincinnati's Crosley Field on May 24, 1935, four years after Herrmann's death.

A gregarious, generous man who liked to dress flashily and set a sumptuous dinner table, Garry Herrmann helped to standardize baseball operations and legitimize the World Series in the first quarter-century of the modern era while also overseeing the fortunes of the Cincinnati Reds, best-known, unfortunately, for being the beneficiaries of the 1919 World Series Black Sox scandal, although that should not be held against Herrmann. He had an important career in baseball, but it is not a Hall of Fame career.

Executive Decisions: Chris von der Ahe

Before George Steinbrenner, before Charlie Finley, even before Bill Veeck, there was Chris von der Ahe, way back in the 19th century, the first colorful owner in baseball history.

Von der Ahe owned the St. Louis Browns in the American Association, which despite the team name was not the St. Louis Browns that played in the American League in the first half of the 20th century before that franchise moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. In fact, the team name was originally the Brown Stockings before von der Ahe shortened it, and the later Browns were named to evoke memories of the Brown Stockings, which by the turn of the century, after von der Ahe had lost ownership of the club, had joined the National League and had become the St. Louis Cardinals.

Emigrating from Prussia (in what is now Germany) to the United States, von der Ahe landed in St. Louis, where he worked as a grocery clerk before buying the store, and in an innovation that would mark his baseball career, he added a saloon to increase business. Noticing that many of his patrons visited the bar after attending local baseball games, he then bought the bankrupt, scandal-ridden Brown Stockings in 1882, shortened the name to the Browns, and set about making himself the first celebrity baseball owner whose persona was as recognizable as his team.

Von der Ahe had the credibility to become a showman because he built the Browns into one of the strongest teams in the American Association; they won four consecutive league championships from 1885 to 1888. Crucial to the Browns' success was player-manager Charles Comiskey, who would go on to become the owner of the Chicago White Sox—including the infamous 1919 "Black Sox" team we encountered with Garry Herrmann—before being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1939. When Comiskey left the franchise after the 1891 season, the Browns deteriorated along with von der Ahe's own fortunes, but during the halcyon days the German-born owner, who knew very little about baseball but quite a lot about promotion, was in his prime.

To increase attendance at games, von der Ahe halved ticket prices from the standard rate of fifty cents, scheduled games on Sundays, and, not surprisingly for a saloon owner, sold alcohol from his Sportsman's Park stadium concessions—all practices proscribed by then-current convention. Those practices worked, however, as attendance soared, bolstered by a quality team on the field, and they helped to make baseball games accessible to more spectators. Moreover, von der Ahe provided amusements and luxuries to further entice attendees including sideshow attractions such as a Wild West exhibition, a "shoot-the-chute" flume ride built in the center field bleachers (think of the "Bernie's Slide Experience" at the Milwaukee Brewers' home stadium Miller Park today), and a "stadium club," a shaded enclosure beneath the grandstands where patrons could watch the game while indulging in food and drink. That last was the precursor to the luxury boxes that are ubiquitous in modern stadiums—although in von der Ahe's time the "stadium club" was open to all on a first-come, first-served basis.

Von der Ahe capped his good fortune by erecting a larger-than-life statue outside Sportsman's Park—not of any of his ballplayers, but of himself as a monument to his entrepreneurial prowess. However, von der Ahe's innovation turned to desperation as the Browns' fortunes fell following Comiskey's departure, and he tried to recoup his losses by offering bigger and grander spectacles to encourage flagging attendance including, of all things, a betting racetrack built in the outfield, which the league challenged as a violation of rules that prohibited gambling—although von der Ahe cannily countered by noting that those rules covered only baseball, not horse racing.

Although von der Ahe knew little about the sport, that did not stop him from trying to guide the fortunes of his ball club. When Browns scout Billy Gleason presented him with a slightly-built shortstop prospect, von der Ahe immediately dismissed the kid as a looking more like a racehorse jockey and sold him to the Baltimore Orioles. That kid succeeded in Baltimore as a third baseman—but when John McGraw then became a manager, notably with the New York Giants, he entered baseball legend as one of the greatest managers of all time and an early inductee into the Hall of Fame in 1937.

And like George Steinbrenner decades later, von der Ahe eventually displayed a cavalier attitude toward his managers, particularly when the Browns plunged into the league cellar in the 1890s following Comiskey's departure. Between 1892, when the Browns entered the National League, and 1897, von der Ahe burned through 16 managers, including Tommy Dowd twice (shades of Billy Martin with the Yankees!), while von der Ahe himself, with his self-professed ignorance of baseball, is on the books as a manager in three different seasons, from 1895 to 1897, winning his only credited game in 1895 but winding up with a 3–14 record overall. During a game in 1894, von der Ahe allegedly replaced manager Doggie Miller with the Browns' official scorer, Harry Martin, before reconciling with Miller.

Yet despite his seeming interest in baseball only as a business enterprise, von der Ahe did enact non-peripheral practices that would become integral to the game. He recognized early the value in cultivating talent for the parent club by also operating the "farm club" the St. Louis Whites, which became a standard practice for the St. Louis Cardinals, the modern incarnation of von der Ahe's Browns, when enacted by Branch Rickey under the auspices of Sam Breadon. And von der Ahe recognized the value, admittedly in terms of promotion, of having a league's champion team play another league's champion team in a "World Series" to determine which was the better team, a concept that resurfaced in 1903 and, as we have seen with Gerry Herrmann, who solidified the concept, remains the crowning event in baseball today. And although "World Series" games before 1903 are now considered to be only exhibition games, in the four years between 1885 and 1888, the Browns tied the first series and then won the next series, both against the Chicago White Stockings, while losing in 1887 to the Detroit Wolverines and in 1888 to the New York Giants.

Chris von der Ahe might not have been savvy about the game of baseball, but he recognized its entertainment value and had the talent and foresight to exploit and enhance its value with innovations and practices that remain in place today—you can think of him the next time you buy that $12 cup of beer at your local ballpark. If there is not already a permanent exhibit extolling colorful Chris von der Ahe's contributions to baseball in Cooperstown, there should be. But are those contributions deserving of a plaque in the Hall of Fame? No.

Pioneering the Game: Doc Adams

How far back does Daniel Adams's baseball career go? Two decades before the Civil War began, when even the commonly understood 19th-century version of baseball had yet to be codified. Indeed, Doc Adams, who got the nickname because he did become a practicing physician (shades of Moonlight Graham from Field of Dreams?), spent most of his playing career as a member of the New York Knickerbockers, one of the first recognizable baseball teams, organized by baseball Founding Father Alexander Cartwright. Adams then became the president of the Knickerbockers before joining the rules and regulations committee of the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), the first organization created to govern baseball, and from which much of the structure of modern baseball, including Adams's contributions, derived.

Born in 1814 in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire, Doc Adams had already graduated from Harvard with a degree in medicine before he began to play organized baseball in 1839, joining in the following year the New York Base Ball Club. By 1845, he became a member of the New York Knickerbockers not long after the club's creation; curiously, many of the players were in the medical field. With baseball in its infancy, histories and playing records from Adams's time are fragmentary, and with players, teams, and schedules—and indeed the very rules of play—still being developed, Adams's on-field exploits have faded into legend.



Daniel "Doc" Adams's early innovations helped to shape baseball.

However, according to John Thorn, Major League Baseball's official historian since 2011, and researcher Freddy Berowski, Adams was the first baseball shortstop. Team sizes during this period varies from eight to eleven players, but teams used only three infielders, one to cover each base, while employing three to six outfielders. Baseballs were very light, and outfielders could not throw them very far, so in 1849 or 1850 Adams began to play an intermediate position between the infield and the deep outfield, what we now call a cut-off position, so he could relay balls from outfielders to the appropriate base. When ball quality improved in the 1850s, enabling outfielders to throw the ball farther, Adams moved closer to the infield, although his was still an interim position and would not become an infield position until later, with Dickey Pearce credited as being the first to play in the position we know today as shortstop.

Nevertheless, the structural innovation that Adams had inspired had profound consequences—shortstop would soon be considered a team's most crucial defensive position outside of catcher—while Adams's impact on the sport continued off the field as well. Adams was elected in various years to be one of the team's off-field officers, often the club president or treasurer, a common practice as baseball clubs were small and simple as compared to the sophisticated business organizations they would soon become. Nevertheless, Adams's stewardship created an organizational structure that newly formed clubs emulated while his stature as a powerful and respected baseball figure grew within the burgeoning baseball environment. And not only did Adams still maintain his medical practice, located in New York City, but he was even involved in the manufacturing of baseballs and baseball bats for a time; Adams noticed that the more tightly a ball was stitched, the farther it would travel when hit or thrown.

And as the need to codify baseball grew, Adams became involved in creating formats, rules, and regulations to govern the sport. Both as a member of the Knickerbockers and as a member of the NABBP formed in 1858, of which he became the chairman of the rules and regulations committee, Adams tried to institute a number of reforms that were eventually successful, although Adams's initial efforts, sometimes vigorously opposed, may not have been immediately implemented. This uncertainty stems from sometimes fragmentary and conflicting accounts concerning events that occurred one-and-a-half centuries ago, although there is a consensus about several important innovations.

One is the size of a baseball team. As noted above, baseball clubs could, and did, field a team of varying sizes (naturally with mutual agreement by the other team, whose squad was of the same size); Adams advocated for a nine-player squad, a convention that was soon adopted and of course remains in effect today. Another innovation was to play a regulation game of nine innings. When Adams began playing baseball, teams played until one of them had scored 21 runs. Adams was adamant about establishing a nine-inning game although he was opposed by others, notably fellow Knickerbocker Duncan Curry, who wanted a seven-inning contest. (Curry was also an insurance executive who co-founded the Republic Fire Insurance Company.) And while some of the details conflict, it is accepted that the nine-inning rule had been adopted by all participating clubs in 1857.

As chairman of the NABBP's rules and regulations committee, Adams also called for standardizing the distance between the bases and between home plate and the pitcher's mound. The current standard was an imprecise "forty-two paces" between home plate and second base as well as "forty-two paces" between first and third base. Adams proposed a uniform 90 feet between all bases, which remains to this day, and a distance of 45 feet between home plate and the pitcher's mound, which was adopted but had been revised twice, first to a distance of 50 feet and then to the current distance of 60 feet, six inches. Adams also wanted to eliminate the "bound rule," which stated that any batted ball caught on one bounce, or hop, was an out. His proposal, the "fly rule" (not to be confused with the later infield fly rule), stated that to be an out, the batted ball must be caught in the air without having touched the ground, which has been the convention for a century and a half. However, this rule was opposed for several years, and it was only adopted in 1864, by which time Doc Adams had retired from baseball.

And then Doc Adams seemed to have disappeared from baseball history while Alexander Cartwright, Henry Chadwick, Albert Spalding—as well as Abner Doubleday and his bogus baseball creation myth—had become instrumental to the story of how baseball was born and developed; all but Doubleday were elected to the Hall of Fame early on while Adams has never been considered for the Hall until now. Initially forgotten but recently re-discovered, Doc Adams's legacy has amassed a groundswell of support—in 2014, the Society for American Baseball Research declared that Adams was its Overlooked 19th Century Baseball Legend for the year, and we have seen how SABR has also endorsed Bill Dahlen and Harry Stovey as overlooked figures from the 19th century.

Based on the historical record, Daniel "Doc" Adams did champion many of the early innovations that codified the game of baseball and that made it into the game we watch today. Those are achievements that are worthy of the Hall of Fame.

Are There Any Pre-Integration Era Hall of Famers Left?

Considering that much of the period covered by the Pre-Integration Era, 1876 to 1946, had already been under scrutiny even when the Baseball Hall of Fame named its inaugural class in 1936, and that in the intervening 80 years the era has been revisited many times, it is fair to think that by now all the Hall of Fame figures from the era have been inducted.

That seems to be the position taken by many contemporary observers, who decry the continual examination of baseball's distant past when so many other figures from baseball's more recent past have been ignored; who discount the accomplishments of players from bygone decades (and, at this point, centuries) because the quality of play, and indeed the very structure of play, does not equate to the contemporary game; and who denounce the enshrinement of players or other figures from the Pre-Integration Era—which put another way is indeed the Segregation Era, when baseball deliberately excluded individuals who were not white from participating.

The first point is a valid one; as noted, this period has long been examined. However, the Hall of Fame has instituted the three separate committees—Pre-Integration, Golden Years, and Expansion—for the current veterans-committee function, and their charter is to evaluate these candidates with, presumably, the equivalent criteria used for other eras to determine whether any is a Hall of Famer. Given the many years in which this period has been examined, with the correspondingly decreasing number of eligible figures (and I can hear Bobby Mathews and Tony Mullane supporters clearing their throats), it may be a good idea to have the Pre-Integration Committee meet every other turn instead of once every three years as is the current practice; in other words, have the other two committees meet in alternate years twice each before returning to the Pre-Integration Committee.

But the second point and especially the third apply contemporary biases to past periods. Yes, of course the quality of play is much superior now than compared to bygone generations, but the primary consideration should be to determine whether, for a player, he was significantly better than his contemporaries and not whether he is significantly better than the best players today. Otherwise, there is no point to the evaluation—will today's players be summarily dismissed fifty years from now because they may not conform to future standards? And given how many current and recent players have and may be overlooked initially, how fair is that? As for figures from the Segregation Era, how much punishment should they endure because they may not have been civil rights activists?

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a museum that celebrates legacy. By definition, it is indebted to history, and history is not immutable. Of course, an event occurs and its having occurred does not change, but its initial recording may not be complete or even consonant (think two witnesses to a traffic accident who then recount different stories), and, more importantly, its interpretation at the time and subsequently may change—and often does. Ron Santo is regarded as one of the greatest third basemen of all time, but despite 15 years on the BBWAA ballot, he was never elected to the Hall of Fame by the writers. (His best showing was 43.1 percent in 1998, his final year on the BBWAA ballot.) In 2012, the Golden Era Committee selected him for the Hall. Ron Santo's statistics never changed, but the perception of his accomplishments did, and his playing days are within relatively recent memory—why was he a Hall of Famer in 2012 but not in 1998?

The picture becomes fuzzier the longer it has been exposed to time. For a Harry Stovey, certainly for a Doc Adams, their careers, their lives, occurred in the distant past, making it harder to overcome presentism, the tendency to evaluate historical events and personages through a contemporary prism, and evaluate their accomplishments within the overall scope of the Hall of Fame, which considers baseball in 1885 to be as valid as baseball in 1985 and in 2015.

Yes, the Pre-Integration Era has been thoroughly examined, but is has not yet been picked entirely clean, and partly that is because of the changing perceptions over time. Harry Stovey looks to be the 19th-century equivalent of a "30-30" player, combining power-hitting with base-stealing ability. Marty Marion was a defensive ace, while Frank McCormick was a fine hitter. Both Bucky Walters and especially Wes Ferrell were pitchers who helped their teams on the mound and at the plate. Garry Herrmann was an important influence in the first quarter century of the modern game begun in 1901, and Chris von der Ahe established the precedent of the eccentric, colorful owner who knew how to promote baseball as entertainment.

And on this Pre-Integration Era ballot for 2016, there are no less than three figures whose accomplishments merit their inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bill Dahlen was a prototype of the hard-hitting shortstop. Sam Breadon presided over the rise of the St. Louis Cardinals as a baseball dynasty, which continues to this day. And Doc Adams established and championed practices in baseball's earliest days that have shaped the game we know and love today. That is why we continue to evaluate and reward legacy. There are still a few unrecognized Hall of Famers left from the Pre-Integration Era.