1896 Prelim

1) Hughie Jennings - great fielding season
2) Bill Dahlen
3) Cupid Childs
4) Ed Delahanty - best bat
5) Joe Kelley
6) Jesse Burkett
7) Bill Joyce
8) Willie Keeler
9) Elmer Smith
10) George Cuppy

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

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+

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

Article on the Temple Cup

Baltimore swept Cleveland

I thought this was interesting from the wiki on the 1896 season

July 13 – Philadelphia Phillies left fielder Ed Delahanty becomes the second Major Leaguer to hit four home runs in a game, two of them being inside-the-park home runs. It wasn't enough, as the Phillies lose to the Chicago Colts, 9–8. He is the only member of the "four home runs in a game" club to have an inside-the-park home run as part of his feat, and he is the first player to do so in a losing effort.

Grant Johnson's MLE is not super impressive. He's still pretty young (23). Frank Grant is still likely to be the best black player.

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

Sigh. BTF won't let me edit the above. "For an 1890s player" should read "for an 1890s black player." "Not the fact" should be "not the fault."

Hello everyone. I've never posted here before, but I'm a longtime reader, and registered just today. I've long been a baseball fan and find this site fascinating. I'm more of a consumer of data than a producer, but after a dive into the stats of many sites, especially fangraphs and bbref for this year, I'd like to throw in a ballot, if I may.

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

Welcome Harmon!