BBTF's Hall of Merit Discussion :: Most Meritorious Player: 1893 Ballot

Hall of Merit
— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Most Meritorious Player: 1893 Ballot

Here are the specific rules for this election:

Candidate Eligibility: Any North American professional baseball player is eligible for the Most Meritorious Player (MMP) award including players on independent teams. Voters should consider the player’s on-field contribution to Major League Baseball (MLB) team(s) in that season only. If part of the season was spent outside MLB, that value may be considered as well. However, the player’s on-field contribution should be judged in relation to the highest level major league, not relative to a minor league. A season may include playoff or World Series games but does not include spring training or exhibition games. No credit will be given for games not played due to injury, wartime service or contract holdouts.

Ballot Length: For 1893, each voter should rank 10 players.

Voter eligibility: All voters who did not vote in the previous year’s election must post a preliminary ballot in the ballot discussion thread. All voters must fill out a complete ballot. Voters must briefly explain their ballot choices. One person, one vote; anyone determined to have voted with multiple accounts will be banned and their votes will be disallowed. The MMP ballot committee has authority to exclude any ballot that does not meet these requirements.

Scoring: Points will be given in descending order with the highest-ranked player receiving 15 points, the second highest 14 points, and so on until the last player on the ballot receives 1 point. The player with the highest point total will be named the Most Meritorious Player. In case of a tie, the tiebreaker will be number of first place votes. If the tiebreaker does not determine a winner the players will share the title of Most Meritorious Player.

Balloting will close at 4pm EST on 8 September 2021.

Anyone can vote, even if you do not normally participate in Hall of Merit discussions. If you have never participated in an MMP election, just post a preliminary ballot in the discussion thread by 7 September 2021.

DL from MN Posted: August 18, 2021 at 10:14 AM | 15 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
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1. DL from MN Posted: August 18, 2021 at 03:07 PM (#6034905)

1893 Ballot

Lots to think about, especially the relative value of pitching when seven pitchers threw 380+ innings. Dan R's WAR discounts the bulk innings but it's hard to completely ignore that kind of contribution. Lots of unearned runs, league ERA was 4.66 but RA was 6.57. Kid Nichols was a top pitcher with a K/9 of 2 and BB/9 of 2.5. Cy Young led the league in K/BB at 0.99.

1) Amos Rusie - too many innings to ignore
2) Ed Delahanty - best position player
3) Cy Young
4) Elmer "Mike" Smith - hit 23 triples!
5) Ted Breitenstein
6) Kid Nichols - there is a clear "top 4" among pitchers
7) Billy Hamilton - only played 82 games but was the best hitter by rate stats
8) Cupid Childs
9) George Davis
10) Frank Grant - he was playing for the Cubans but there are no recorded stats. Age 27 season and a Hall of Merit caliber player.

11-15) Frank Killen, Denny Lyons, Bid McPhee, Sam Thompson, Jake Beckley
16-20) Billy Nash, Roger Connor, Dan Brouthers, John McGraw, Herman Long

2. DL from MN Posted: August 18, 2021 at 03:09 PM (#6034906)

bjhanke Posted: July 25, 2021 at 07:25 AM (#6030309)
Oh, hey. I'm actually here and able to post. So, here's my ballot for 1893. A fun year.

Hi. This is Brock Hanke’s ballot for 1893. It’s a list of Win Shares. One interesting feature is that, although 1893 was the first year with the 60’ 6” pitching distance, the pitchers do not seem to have been much affected. Seven of the players on my list were pitchers, including the Top Six. The three who weren’t pitchers were Hugh Duffy, Ed Delahanty and Herman Long. I assume that everybody here recognizes those three names. Well, enough of this; here’s the list:

1. Frank Killen (42)
2. Amos Rusie (41)
3. Kid Nichols (40)
4. Cy Young (35)
5. Ted Breitenstein (30)
6. Brickyard Kennedy (29)
7. Hugh Duffy (28)
8. Ed Delahanty (28)
9. Herman Long (26)
10. Sadie McMahon (26)

3. Starring Bradley Scotchman as RMc Posted: August 18, 2021 at 03:30 PM (#6034918)

1. Kid Nichols. Led the league in WAR, and his team won the pennant.

...followed by the rest of the "Big 4"...

2. Cy Young.
3. Theodore Br't'nst'n.
4. Amos Rusie.

...and then...

5. Ed Delahanty. Best position player.
6. Frank Killen.
7. George Davis.
8. Billy Hamilton. (No, not that one.)
9. Mike Smith.
10.Duke Farrell. Highest-rated catcher by WAR, and considering the way catchers got beat up in the 19th century, he deserves a spot!

4. DL from MN Posted: August 18, 2021 at 06:21 PM (#6034984)

Glad to see new voters. We like to see new voters post a prelim ballot and explain about what is important to them when making their ballot decisions (what data do you use & how do you use it)

5. MrC. Posted: August 18, 2021 at 06:27 PM (#6034985)

Final ballot

With an extra month to "think", I was able to make some adjustments to my preliminary ballot

1. Frank Killen 9.33 WARR
2. Ed Delahanty 9.23 WARR:
3. Kid Nichols 8.83 WARR
4. Theodore Breitenstein 8.80 WARR
5. Cy Young: 8.74 WARR
6. Amos Rusie 8.23 WARR
7. Billy Hamilton 6.36 WARR
8. Sadie McMahon 6.11 WARR
9. Cupid Childs 5.54 WARR
10. Elmer (Mike) Smith 5.39 WARR

Rest of top 15
11. George Davis
12. Buck Ewing
13. Roger Connor
14. Bid McPhee
15. Dan Brouthers

6. kcgard2 Posted: August 19, 2021 at 04:44 PM (#6035189)

1893 ballot

1) Cy Young
2) Kid Nichols
3) Amos Rusie
4) Ed Delahanty
5) Ted Breitenstein
6) George Davis
7) Frank Killen
8) Elmer Smith
9) Billy Hamilton
10) Denny Lyons

11-20) Cupid Childs, Sadie McMahon, Frank Grant, Jake Beckley, Roger Connor, Bid McPhee, Sam Thompson, John McGraw, Jack Glasscock, Jesse Burkett

7. bjhanke Posted: August 23, 2021 at 06:00 AM (#6035705)

Hi. This is Brock Hanke’s ballot for 1893. It’s a list of Win Shares. One interesting feature is that, although 1893 was the first year with the 60’ 6” pitching distance, the pitchers do not seem to have been much affected. Seven of the players on my list were pitchers, including the Top Six. The three who weren’t pitchers were Hugh Duffy, Ed Delahanty and Herman Long. I assume that everybody here recognizes those three names. Well, enough of this; here’s the list:

1. Frank Killen (42)
2. Amos Rusie (41)
3. Kid Nichols (40)
4. Cy Young (35)
5. Ted Breitenstein (30)
6. Brickyard Kennedy (29)
7. Hugh Duffy (28)
8. Ed Delahanty (28)
9. Herman Long (26)
10. Sadie McMahon (26)

8. Qufini Posted: August 27, 2021 at 11:24 AM (#6036692)

1893 Ballot

1. Amos Rusie, P, New York Giants: 482 IP laps the competition while 143 ERA+ comes in 3rd
2. Ed Delahanty, LF, Philadelphia Phhillies: 2nd in OPS+ with 164, leads in RC with 144, and adds +17 fielding
3. Cy Young, P, Cleveland Spiders: 144 ERA+ is 2nd, 422 IP is 3rd
4. Kid Nichols, P, Boston Beaneaters: 425 IP is 2nd, 139 ERA+ is 3rd
5. George Davis, 3B, New York Giants: 4th in MLB with 155 OPS+ while adding +2 fielding from a prime defensive position
6. Ted Breitenstein, P, St. Louis Browns: 148 ERA+ leads the league but 382 IP is well behind the top hurlers
7. Frank Killen, P, Pittsburgh Pirates: 124 ERA+ and 415 IP for a strong combo of quality and quantity
8. Elmer Smith, LF, Pittsburgh Pirates: 158 OPS+ is 3rd and he adds +6 fielding from left field
9. Sam Thompson, RF, Philadelphia Phillies: 151 OPS+ is top five while 133 RC is second only to his teammate Ed
10. Billy Hamilton, CF, Philadelphia Phillies: 167 OPS+ leads the league though Slidin' Billy missed a lot of time this season

11. Brickyard Kennedy, P, Brooklyn Grooms
12. Ed McKean, SS, Cleveland Spiders
13. Cupid Childs, 2B, Cleveland Spiders
14. Jesse Burkett, LF, Cleveland Spiders
15. Denny Lyons, 3B, Pittsburgh Pirates

9. DL from MN Posted: September 03, 2021 at 11:36 AM (#6038104)

One more weekend to create a ballot. Any objections to RMc ballot? He didn't post a prelim but it has explanation and was posted in plenty of time for discussion.

10. MrC. Posted: September 03, 2021 at 11:12 PM (#6038215)

No Problem.

11. Tubbs is Bobby Grich when he flys off the handle Posted: September 04, 2021 at 11:25 AM (#6038264)

Final ballot-some small credit for playing for a Pennant contender

1. Kid Nichols
2. Amos Rusie-top 2 was close, Nichols’ team winning the pennant helped make the difference
3. Cy Young
4. Ed Delahanty-top position player
5. Theodore Breitenstein
6. Mike Smith
7. George Davis-very close between Smith & Davis
8. Frank Killen-bat helped get him in top 10
9. Billy Hamilton-would’ve been close to Delahanty but played in 50 less games
10.Denny Lyons

12. DL from MN Posted: September 07, 2021 at 05:46 PM (#6038601)

One day left!

13. Michael J. Binkley's anxiety closet Posted: September 08, 2021 at 02:18 PM (#6038708)

1893 MMP Balllot:

1. Kid Nichols (28.97)
2. Cy Young (27.67)
3. Ted Breitenstein (26.66)
4. Amos Rusie (24.08)
5. Ed Delahanty (21.38) - MMPosition Player
6. Frank Killen (17.60)
7. Billy Hamilton (15.32)
8. George Davis (15.28)
9. Cupid Childs (12.35)
10. Elmer (Mike) Smith (12.21)

14. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: September 08, 2021 at 03:48 PM (#6038726)

1) Amos Rusie: Best ML player/pitcher by a comfortable amount.
2) Kid Nichols: Best juvenile hurler.
3) Cy Young: Best pitcher named Denton.
4) Ted Breitenstein: Not Bright-en-stein, but Bright-en-shteen!
5) Sadie McMahon: Best female moundsman.
6) Ed Delahanty: Oh, you want the best ML position player and left fielder now?
7) Brickyard Kennedy: ... and we're back to more pitchers (atypical of me, I know)
8) Billy Hamilton CF: Best ML center fielder.
9) Hugh Duffy: No more pitchers!
10) Elmer Smith: What is his name?

15. DL from MN Posted: September 08, 2021 at 04:05 PM (#6038730)

election is over

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Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Most Meritorious Player: 1893 Ballot

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