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

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Most Meritorious Player: 1896 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 1896, 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 2 March 2022.

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 1 March 2022.

DL from MN Posted: February 23, 2022 at 11:06 AM | 10 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
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Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

   1. DL from MN Posted: February 23, 2022 at 01:12 PM (#6065953)
1896 Ballot

1) Hughie Jennings - great fielding season
2) Bill Dahlen - SS replacement level is very low, half a win more than 2B at the same production. That's most of the difference between Dahlen and Childs.
3) Cupid Childs
4) Ed Delahanty - best bat
5) Joe Kelley - next best bat
6) Jesse Burkett - good fielding LF beats out the lesser fielding 3B Joyce
7) Bill Joyce
8) Willie Keeler
9) Elmer Smith
10) George Cuppy - best PWAA and a little better hitter gives him the nod over Young

11-15) Mike Tiernan, Cy Young, Billy Hamilton, Frank Grant, Bill Lange, Pink Hawley

Dan R's WAR is translating innings at a much lower rate than BBREF. Frank Grant is most likely the best black player. In lieu of a yearly MLE I am just using the average production he would have been expected to have as a Hall of Merit caliber player during the peak of his career. That kind of smoothing out is not going to help him on these lists.
   2. DL from MN Posted: February 23, 2022 at 01:16 PM (#6065954)
Hi! This is Brock Hanke's ballot for 1895, just in case I have trouble with the Ballot Thread. As per usual, it's a listing of Win Shares. I don't know anything like enough to even try to evaluate a MLE computation for an 1890s player, so I'm not including any. This is not the fact of the black players, but of the lack of any actual league. I probably should warn everyone that my inability to vote for the most recent years, driven by my lack of any listing of Win Shares, has stopped. I found a workaround: Short Form Win Shares. This is a stat the Bill introduced at the very beginning of the book Win Shares. It's pretty good at tracking WS, producing results that are very close to long form. The big trouble with it is that it involves computing Bill's Run Created, which is a chore. But I just found out that BB-Ref, likely not anticipating the horrific use I will put the info to, actually lists RC for all players, and those are BILL's RC's. If you give me that, I can do the other computations.

One last note: I voted Sliding Billy Hamilton in as my #10. He is actually in a three-way tie with pitchers Fred Dwyer and Clark Griffith. I admit to choosing Hamilton because I'm a Hamilton fan. I also admit that, if I had any real idea of who might be the best black player during the year, I'd drop Billy and add the black guy. I just don't know enough to do that.

1. Cy Young (43 WS)
2. Nig Cuppy 38
3. Hughie Jennings 36
4. Kid Nichols 33
5. Frank Killen 32
6. Bill Dahlen 31
7. Joe Kelley 31
8. Ed Eelahanty 31
9. Bill Hoffer 31
10. Sliding Billy Hamilton 30
   3. kcgard2 Posted: February 27, 2022 at 12:05 PM (#6066310)
1896 ballot

1) Cy Young
2) Hughie Jennings
3) Ed Delahanty
4) Joe Kelley
5) Bill Dahlen
6) George Cuppy
7) Frank Killen
8) Cupid Childs
9) Bill Joyce
10) Billy Hamilton

11-15) Elmer Smith, Clark Griffith, Bill Hoffer, Kid Nichols, Frank Dwyer
   4. Harmon Ripkowski Posted: March 01, 2022 at 04:55 PM (#6066537)
If it's allowed, here is my ballot...

1 - Cy Young, best pitching performance by a hair over number three
2 - Hughie Jennings, in the middle of a remarkable run of MMP caliber seasons
3 - George Cuppy, the gap between these three and number four is greater than numbers four through fourteen
4 - Joe Kelley
5 - Cupid Childs

6 - Bill Dahlen
7 - Ed Delahanty
8 - Bill Hoffer
9 - Bill Joyce
10 - Willie Keeler

I feel comfortable with this ranking, even though I admit I tinkered with it each day for the last week. Most of the bottom seven players stand shoulder to shoulder, if you will, as do some of the next players...

The best of the rest in order would be Frank Killen, Billy Hamilton, Kid Nichols, Mike Tiernan, Elmer Smith, Frank Dwyer, Jesse Burkett, Pink Hawley, George Davis, & Bill Lange
   5. Tubbs is Bobby Grich when he flys off the handle Posted: March 01, 2022 at 05:14 PM (#6066538)
Final ballot-some small credit for playing for a Pennant contender
1. Hughie Jennings-just edges Ed
2. Ed Delahanty
3. Cy Young
4. George Cuppy-decent size gap from top 4 to the remainder of top 10
5. Joe Kelley
6. Bill Dahlen-Kelley & Dahlen were close
7. Billy Hamilton
8. Mike Smith-Hamilton slides in just ahead of Elmer
9. Jesse Burkett
10.Frank Killen-just beats out Kid Nichols for the final spot

   6. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: March 02, 2022 at 09:31 AM (#6066569)
Official 1896 MMP ballot:

1) Cy Young: Best ML player and pitcher.
2) George Cuppy: Very close to the Cyclone.
3) Frank Dwyer
4) Kid Nichols
5) Hughie Jennings: Best ML positional player and shortstop.
6) Frank Killen
7) Ed Delahanty: Best left fielder.
8) Clark Griffith
9) Bill Hoffer
10) Billy Hamilton: Best center fielder.
   7. DL from MN Posted: March 02, 2022 at 05:25 PM (#6066609)
HAWK Posted: February 03, 2022 at 05:57 PM (#6063758)

1) Hughie Jennings – 8.3 WAR, Best fielding shortstop, Best non-outfield hitter, 151 OPS+, .401 BA, 200+ hits, Regular Season Champion
2) Ed Delahanty – 7.3 WAR, Best hitter, 190 OPS+, .631 SLG, excellent fielder
3) Kid Nichols – 6.3 WAR, 30 Wins, 160 ERA+, 4.10 FIP
4) Cy Young – 10.5 WAR, 28 Wins, 140 ERA+, 3.36 FIP, excellent fielding pitcher
5) Bill Dahlen – 7.1 WAR, 156 OPS+, excellent fielder
6) George Cuppy – 10.3 WAR, 25 Wins, 146 ERA+, 3.79 FIP, excellent fielding pitcher
7) Childs, Cupid – 6.2 WAR, Best fielding 2nd baseman, 135 OPS+
8) Burkett, Jesse – 5.3 WAR, 157 OPS+, .410 BA, 240 hits
9) Bill Hoffer – 8.3 WAR, 25 Wins, 127 ERA+, 3.77 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
10) Kelley, Joe – 7.0 WAR, 164 OPS+

11) Frank Killen – 8.4 WAR, 30 Wins, 123 ERA+, 3.81 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
12) Bill Joyce – 6.2 WAR, 161 OPS+
13) Mike (Elmer) Smith – 5.7 WAR, 155 OPS+, solid fielder
14) Billy Hamilton – 5.8 WAR, 145 OPS+, 83 SB
15) Keeler, Willie – 5.3 WAR, 142 OPS+, 200+ hits
16) Tiernan, Mike – 5.5 WAR, 158 OPS+
17) Frank Dwyer – 7.6 WAR, 24 Wins, 147 ERA+, 4.00 FIP
18) Clark Griffith – 6.4 WAR, 23 Wins, 128 ERA+, 3.68 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
19) Pink Hawley – 8.3 WAR, 22 Wins, 117 ERA+, 4.10 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
20) McKean, Ed – 3.7 WAR, 120 OPS+
   8. DL from MN Posted: March 02, 2022 at 05:28 PM (#6066610)
No ballots from Qufini, Mr C or Binkley. Do we need an extension?
   9. DL from MN Posted: March 03, 2022 at 01:41 PM (#6066680)
election is over
   10. Tubbs is Bobby Grich when he flys off the handle Posted: April 05, 2022 at 08:29 PM (#6070466)
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