- Posts: 770
- Joined: Sat Sep 24, 2016 2:12 am
Thu May 27, 2021 3:00 am
I agree with the policy of excluding the Union Association and Federal League as they were demonstrably lower quality than the other majors. But the Players League and the American Association were peers of the NL. Not really sure why they should be excluded.
The most extensive publicly available research on league quality I'm aware of was by David Gassko back in 2007. This graph represents his findings: https://tht.fangraphs.com/wp-content/up ... lty_16.gif
He finds that the PL was actually the strongest league in 1890. And for the majority of its seasons, the AA was equal to the NL. (The first season of the Federal League also seems legit.)
The UA should never have been recognized as a major. But the other leagues appear to have been legit majors.
Furthermore we just got 7 more leagues recognized as majors: https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-negro-leag ... ue-status/ And I doubt anyone wants to exclude them from ATG. (By the way, how does the AL/NL-only nominations policy square with the Negro League cards already in ATG? Is the policy meant to prevent further nominations of Negro Leaguers or is it just an oversight and their nominations are in fact allowed?)
Instead of allowing nominations from only the AL/NL, Gassko's research suggests that eligibility should be broadened to include the PL, the AA (at least 1885-89), and maybe even the 1914 FL (not to mention the NA, which was obviously the strongest league of its time). With the official addition of the 7 Negro Leagues imminent (https://twitter.com/sean_forman/status/ ... 9437713412), maybe now would be an opportune time to revisit the AL/NL-only policy.
(Gassko's full post is part of an older internet and unfortunately not the most accessible. It's broken up into 4 parts. Here is part 4, which contains links to the previous 3 in the text: https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-live/leag ... ty-part-4/ The images/graphs no longer load correctly but will open if you load them manually.)
The most extensive publicly available research on league quality I'm aware of was by David Gassko back in 2007. This graph represents his findings: https://tht.fangraphs.com/wp-content/up ... lty_16.gif
He finds that the PL was actually the strongest league in 1890. And for the majority of its seasons, the AA was equal to the NL. (The first season of the Federal League also seems legit.)
The UA should never have been recognized as a major. But the other leagues appear to have been legit majors.
Furthermore we just got 7 more leagues recognized as majors: https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-negro-leag ... ue-status/ And I doubt anyone wants to exclude them from ATG. (By the way, how does the AL/NL-only nominations policy square with the Negro League cards already in ATG? Is the policy meant to prevent further nominations of Negro Leaguers or is it just an oversight and their nominations are in fact allowed?)
Instead of allowing nominations from only the AL/NL, Gassko's research suggests that eligibility should be broadened to include the PL, the AA (at least 1885-89), and maybe even the 1914 FL (not to mention the NA, which was obviously the strongest league of its time). With the official addition of the 7 Negro Leagues imminent (https://twitter.com/sean_forman/status/ ... 9437713412), maybe now would be an opportune time to revisit the AL/NL-only policy.
(Gassko's full post is part of an older internet and unfortunately not the most accessible. It's broken up into 4 parts. Here is part 4, which contains links to the previous 3 in the text: https://tht.fangraphs.com/tht-live/leag ... ty-part-4/ The images/graphs no longer load correctly but will open if you load them manually.)