August 23, 2005

An Objective Hall of Fame

Part Five, 1947-1950

by Clay Davenport

Continuing our Hall through the mid-'40s. If you're new to the series, be sure to check out the earlier installments, especially the first one, for more information.

The players who retired around the start of World War II--and there were a bunch of those--are starting to show up now, so we won't be entirely stuck on players from the 19th century--not that there's anything wrong with that. Next time I'll take a break from the players I'm putting in and look at some of the players I'm keeping out. The information presented below is the player's name, position, Career MVP score, and, in parentheses, the year he was elected to the real HOF.

Class of 1947

• LEFTY GROVE, Pitcher, 661.5, (1947)
• WES FERRELL, Pitcher, 583.3, (----)
• GABBY HARTNETT, Catcher, 544.6, (1955)
• EARL AVERILL, Center field, 532.1, (1975)
• JACK GLASSCOCK, Shortstop, 491.7, (----)

Being able to identify Lefty Grove as a Hall of Famer isn't exactly a test of an evaluation system, as many people identify him as possibly the best pitcher of all time. His score, however is only a 662. That ranks him fifth among all pitchers to date, behind Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and Christy Mathewson, and by the time I get to 2005 he's only going to rank 12th.

How to explain the difference? A small part, perhaps, comes from getting a late start in the majors, as he was tied to the then-minor league Baltimore Orioles for five years. The Orioles of those days were an independent team, not affiliated with any major league team, and the existing rules allowed them to keep a player on reserve--so when they had a star player like Grove, they could hold out to the highest bidder. In Grove's five years in Baltimore, he averaged a 22-7 season, with 237 innings, 222 strikeouts (leading the IL four years in a row), and, on the downside, 139 walks. He could have come up earlier, no doubt. A little bit comes from him giving up more unearned runs than expected; most other systems work from earned runs, I work from all runs. A little bit comes from having the support of above-average defenses, despite the unearned-run thing just mentioned. Grove had a reputation for blowing up when errors were committed behind him; this may be evidence of that. A little bit comes from being a below-average hitter. All those little bits add up.

Wes Ferrell is an interesting case to have come up right next to Grove, as the comparison of the two was the subject of many articles on the SABR-L mailing list, most by Dick Thompson (who turned his initial posts into a book. The gist of the argument is that the difference between the two wouldn't have seemed as large as it did if they had had a quality of batters faced report available in the early 1930s; Grove ran up his stats by pitching against weak opponents while Ferrell faced everybody. Ferrell had six really outstanding seasons, the four years from 1929-32 and again in 1935-36, with arm injuries in the interim. He was a legitimately great pitcher, albeit for a short time, who had the misfortune to have his skills masked by pitching at the peak of the live-ball era. Ferrell was also one of the best-hitting pitchers of all time. I ran a version of the MVP score, using only batting stats. The best player whose position was listed as a pitcher was Bob Caruthers, by a mile. Ferrell ranked 14th on the list; all 13 of the pitchers on the list were retired before Ferrell got started.

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