Baseball for the Thinking Fan

Login | Register | Feedback

btf_logo
You are here > Home > Hall of Merit > Discussion
Hall of Merit
— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best

Friday, March 25, 2022

Most Meritorious Player: 1897 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 1897, 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 6 April 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 5 April 2022.

DL from MN Posted: March 25, 2022 at 10:42 AM | 11 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
  Related News:

Reader Comments and Retorts

Go to end of page

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. bjhanke Posted: March 28, 2022 at 12:40 AM (#6069374)
Here's Brock Hanke's ballot for 1897, copied over from the Discussion Thread. It's a list of Win Shares, as usual. I still don't know nearly enough to even identify the best black player out there at that time, much less compare him to the white guys, so I have no black guys on the list. I would be happy to vote for a black guy, if I only knew which one to choose.

1897 is an interesting year. Keeping track of Win Shares, as I've been doing, allowed me to see that the drift ("trend" is a badly overworked word right now) of the game's top players was in the direction of smaller deviations between the top guys and the mass. In 1897, I could only find 6 players with 30 or more WS. That's the least I've found, and it's just the result of a drift in that direction that had been going on for years. But we will never have a chance to see how that drift would have turned out, because 1897 is also the last year of the 132-game schedule. The schedule had been 154 games in 1892, but in 1893, along with changing the playing field conditions for pitchers, the Powers that Were dropped the schedule down to 132 games. 1897 here is the last year of the 132 games; in 1898, the schedule will revert to 154 games. In 1900, it will drop down to 140 games, and then there is the American League, which changes everything.

OK, I'll shut up. Here's the list:

1. Kid Nichols (41 Win Shares)
2. Ted Breitenstein (34)
3. Wee Willie Keeler (32)
4. George Davis (31)
5. Amos Rusie (34)
6. Fred Clarke (30)
7. Hughie Jennings (29)
8. Sliding Billy Hamilton (28)
9. Cy Young (28)
10. Jimmy Collins (26)
   2. DL from MN Posted: March 28, 2022 at 10:47 AM (#6069401)
1897 Ballot

1) Hughie Jennings - good glove, very low SS replacement value
2) Willie Keeler - best hitter
3) George Davis
4) Jimmy Collins - great glove
5) Kid Nichols - bulk innings are not compiling a lot of value in Dan R's WAR
6) Fred Clarke - 2nd best bat
7) Amos Rusie - only two pitchers really stand out this season in PWAA
8) Napoleon Lajoie - best first baseman
9) Joe Kelley
10) Ed Delahanty

11-15) Jesse Burkett, Bobby Wallace, Frank Grant, Cupid Childs, Billy Hamilton
16-20) John McGraw, Ted Breitenstein, Hugh Duffy, Kip Selbach, Bill Dahlen
   3. kcgard2 Posted: March 28, 2022 at 05:12 PM (#6069468)
1897 ballot

1) Kid Nichols
2) Hughie Jennings
3) Willie Keeler
4) George Davis
5) Fred Clarke
6) Cy Young
7) Amos Rusie
8) Ed Delahanty
9) Ted Breitenstein
10) Jimmy Collins

11-15) Joe Kelley, Billy Hamilton, Nap Lajoie, Clark Griffith, Jesse Burkett
   4. bjhanke Posted: March 30, 2022 at 03:14 AM (#6069610)
The system is not letting me actually edit my comment, so I'll just post here that my placement of Amos Rusie is right, but I typoed the Win Shares. Amos has only 31 WS, not 34.
   5. Harmon Ripkowski Posted: April 03, 2022 at 11:18 PM (#6070262)
I switched Collins and Breitenstein but otherwise I remain consistent with my initial ballot.

1 - Kid Nichols
2 - Hughie Jennings
3 - Willie Keeler
4 - Amos Rusie
5 - George Davis

6 - Fred Clarke
7 - Jimmy Collins
8 - Ted Breitenstein
9 - Billy Hamilton
10 - Nap Lajoie


Childs, Delahanty, McGraw, Burkett, Corbett would be my next five...
   6. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: April 04, 2022 at 02:16 PM (#6070293)
Official 1897 MMP Ballot:

1) Kid Nichols: Best ML player and pitcher - nobody really close to him, IMO.
2) Ted Breitenstein
3) Amos Rusie
4) Cy Young
5) Willie Keeler: Best positional player and right fielder.
6) George Davis: Best ML shortstop.
7) Hughie Jennings
8) Win Mercer
9) Fred Clarke: Best ML left fielder.
10) Billy Hamilton: Best ML center fielder.
   7. DL from MN Posted: April 05, 2022 at 11:26 AM (#6070398)
Anyone need an extension? We're a little light on ballots
   8. Tubbs is Bobby Grich when he flys off the handle Posted: April 05, 2022 at 08:30 PM (#6070467)
1897 MMP ballot

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

1 Kid Nichols
2 Wee Willie Keeler
3 George Davis
4 Hughie Jennings
5 Amos Rusie
6 Fred Clarke
7 Napoleon Lajoie
8 Ed Delahanty
9 Jimmy Collins
10Joe Kelley
   9. Michael J. Binkley's anxiety closet Posted: April 05, 2022 at 10:38 PM (#6070481)
1897 MMP Ballot:

Number in parentheses is rate-based salary estimator, in millions of dollars

1. Kid Nichols (29.86)
2. Hughie Jennings (26.43) - MMPosition Player
3. George Davis (22.12)
4. Amos Rusie (21.09)
5. Willie Keeler (20.29)
6. Fred Clarke (18.07)
7. Ted Breitenstein (16.85)
8. Jimmy Collins (14.65)
9. Nap Lajoie (13.82)
10. Ed Delahanty (12.32)

11-15. Cupid Childs, Joe Kelley, Cy Young, Billy Hamilton, John McGraw.

1897 mWAR All-Star team:

c - Deacon McGuire
1b - Nap Lajoie
2b - Cupid Childs
ss - Hughie Jennings
3b - Jimmy Collins
lf - Fred Clarke
cf - Billy Hamilton
rf - Willie Keeler

sp - Kid Nichols
sp - Amos Rusie
sp - Ted Breitenstein
   10. DL from MN Posted: April 06, 2022 at 10:07 AM (#6070515)
HAWK Posted: March 17, 2022 at 05:34 PM (#6068206)
1) Kid Nichols – 11.1 WAR, 31 Wins, 168 ERA+, 3.53 FIP, solid fielding pitcher, Regular Season Champion
2) Willie Keeler – 7.1 WAR, 164 OPS+, .424 BA, 239 hits
3) Hughie Jennings – 7.3 WAR, Best fielding shortstop, 146 OPS+
4) Nap Lajoie – 5.2 WAR, 155 OPS+, 127 RBI, Best non-outfield hitter
5) George Davis – 6.9 WAR, 144 OPS+, 135 RBI, excellent fielder
6) Jimmy Collins – 5.3 WAR, 128 OPS+, 132 RBI, excellent fielder, Regular Season Champion
7) Fred Clarke – 6.6 WAR, 166 OPS+, 205 hits
8) Ed Delahanty – 5.7 WAR, 161 OPS+, excellent fielder
9) Amos Rusie – 8.3 WAR, 28 Wins, 163 ERA+, 3.63 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
10) Bobby Wallace – 4.2 WAR, 127 OPS+, 112 RBI, excellent fielder

11) Joe Kelley – 5.1 WAR, 147 OPS+, 118 RBI
12) Jesse Burkett – 4.2 WAR, 140 OPS+
13) Hugh Duffy – 4.1 WAR, 128 OPS+, 129 RBI, Regular Season Champion
14) Cy Young – 6.7 WAR, 21 Wins, 123 ERA+, 3.58 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
15) Theodore Breitenstein – 7.9 WAR, 23 Wins, 125 ERA+, 3.77 FIP, solid fielding pitcher
   11. DL from MN Posted: April 06, 2022 at 04:15 PM (#6070595)
election is over, results soon

You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.

 

 

<< Back to main

BBTF Partner

Dynasty League Baseball

Support BBTF

donate

Thanks to
BDC
for his generous support.

Bookmarks

You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.

Syndicate

Page rendered in 0.2126 seconds
41 querie(s) executed