Sorry for the late post. I extended the due date accordingly

Based on the the prelims, I'm out on a limb by myself for this season but here goes...

1906 Ballot

1. Mordecai Brown, P, Chicago Cubs: he may have had a great defense behind him but that 253 ERA+ leads the league by more than 80 points
2. Napoleon Lajoie, 2B, Cleveland Naps
3. George Stone, LF, St. Louis Browns- Stone is one of my favorite obscure early players and he had the best offensive year in the AL but Lajoie's glovework at a tougher defensive position pushes him ahead
4. Honus Wagner, SS, Pittsburgh Pirates: 2nd in NL OPS+, 1st in RC, +10 fielding, best NL position player
5. Harry Lumley, RF, Brooklyn Superbas: 1st in OPS+, 2nd in RC, +3 fielding
6. Terry Turner, SS, Cleveland Naps- a career year for Cotton Top
7. Vic Willis, P, Pittsburgh Pirates: a great combination of quality (4th in ERA+) and quantity (3rd in IP)
8. Dan McClellan, P/RF, Philadelphia Giants: McClellan's combo of pitching and hitting puts him here (though I flipped Willis and McClellan from my prelim)
9. Elmer Flick, CF, Cleveland Naps- Flick moves to centerfield for most of the year and still hits as well as anyone in the game
10. Harry Steinfeldt, 3B, Cincinnati Reds: top five in both OPS+ and RC to go along with +6 fielding from the hot corner

11. Rube Foster, P, Philadelphia Giants
12. Jack Pfeister, P, Chicago Cubs
13. Otto Hess, P, Cleveland Naps
14. Bob Rhoads, P, Cleveland Naps
15. Art Devlin, 3B, New York Giants

This is Brock Hanke’s final ballot for 1906. This was, by far, the easiest one of these I’ve ever done. You all know my method – take the Win Shares and WAR from the header, sort to the two ordinals, and add the ordinals. It turned out, this year, that all of the top ten in WAR were in the top ten overall. Win Shares wasn’t any worse. Its #9 and 10 guys missed the overall list, but the #12 and #14 guys replaced them, so that was nothing. The hardest part was slotting in Danny McClellan, who is, IMO, the best Negro player this year. Essentially, according to Seamheads, McClellan pitched about even with Rube Foster, but had about twice as many plate appearances because he played in the field when not pitching, and Foster did not. So he runs Vic Willis out of the overall #10 slot, and I had a tie for #8, so I put him ahead of both of those (now #9 and #10). That left me with comparing McClellan to Frank Chance. I gave Chance a manager bonus that I’m pretty sure everyone will agree he deserves in 1906. And that was that. Took me about half an hour. So, here’s the list, without further comment:

1. Honus Wagner
2. George Stone
3. Nap Lajoie
4. Art Devlin
5. Three Finger Brown
6. Al Orth
7. Frank Chance
8. Danny McClellan
9. Cotton Turner
10. Harry Steinfeldt

Oh, Chris. I just read your ballot. You have Stone and Lajoie flipped compared to me. I actually had a tie for the #2 slot between them, but went with Stone because, largely, of the long essay that Bill James wrote back in the New Historical about the time period distortions in Lajoie's fielding stats. I assume you've read the book several times; just wanted to ask if you remembered that Lajoie's defensive stats can be misleading, which may be why Win Shares has him lower (5th) than WAR does (1st). - Brock

1906 Ballot

1) Honus Wagner
2) Napoleon Lajoie - these two lead the pack, again
3) George Stone - baseball's best hitter 1906
4) Art Devlin - numbers say outstanding fielder at 3B.
5) Terry Turner - baseball's best glove 1906?
6) Elmer Flick
7) Roger Bresnahan - with C bonus he's the first C to get a vote for me this decade
8) Frank Chance - pennant winner in my top 10
9) Danny McClellan - there is quite a bit of data here. 65.7 Negro League innings pitched plus time in Cuba. 117 plate appearances. The MLB pitchers are not impressive in 1906. I have McClellan and Foster ahead of all of them.
10) Harry Steinfeldt - Career year helped the Cubs destroy the competition

11) Pete Hill - .350/.425/.470 over 116 PA plus solid shoulder seasons in Cuba but just off ballot
12-15) Bobby Wallace, Harry Lumley, Rube Foster, Doc White
16-20) Al Orth, Jake Weimer, Vic Willis, Miller Huggins, Johnny Kling

Oh, Chris. I just read your ballot. You have Stone and Lajoie flipped compared to me. I actually had a tie for the #2 slot between them, but went with Stone because, largely, of the long essay that Bill James wrote back in the New Historical about the time period distortions in Lajoie's fielding stats. I assume you've read the book several times; just wanted to ask if you remembered that Lajoie's defensive stats can be misleading, which may be why Win Shares has him lower (5th) than WAR does (1st). - Brock

Lajoie's advantage over Stone is about 40% defensive numbers, 60% positional advantage. Even if Lajoie's defensive numbers are skewed, he still played the tougher defensive position than Stone while hitting nearly as well. I may think it about a bit more before the deadline but for now, I'll leave the two as is.

Official 1906 MMP Ballot (no postseason bonuses and includes AL adjustments)

1) Honus Wagner: Best ML player and shortstop by quite a bit.


2) George Stone: Best AL player and left fielder.
3) Mordecai Brown: Best ML pitcher.
4) Frank Chance: Best ML first baseman.
5) Nap Lajoie: Best ML second baseman.
6) Al Orth: Best AL pitcher.
7) Danny McClellan: Best NeL player and pitcher - knocked Rube Foster off my ballot, the latter originally at the bottom of my prelim.
8) Art Devlin: Best ML third baseman.
9) Harry Lumley: Best ML right fielder.
10) Harry Steinfeldt: Best forgotten member of the turn-of-the-last-century Cubs.

Is everyone on vacation? Not a lot of participation for this election either.

1906 final ballot:

I made some tweaks to my system this "year." I eliminated the added average WAR to use just the salary estimator. To compensate, catcher-wise, I bumped the catcher bmnus from 20 to 255

I use a combination of WAR systems (bWAR, fWAR, GWAR and DanR, double counting the best for position players and best non-fWAR for pitchers) to get an average WAR for each player. I use that number to get a Dan R-style peak-rate salary estimation. I use a 25% bonus for catchers and do not credit postseason except as a tiebreaker.

1. Honus Wagner ($27,511.074)
2. Nap Lajoie ($26,007,277) - AL MMP
3. George Stone ($22,959,496)
4. Terry Turner ($22,898,460)
5. Art Devlin ($20,359,696)
6. Frank Chance ($17,449,075)
7. Al Orth ($16,007,890) - AL MMPitcher
8. Grant Johnson ($14,972,079) - NeL MMP
9. Harry Steinfeldt ($14,698,921)
10. Vic Willis ($13,856,907) - NL MMPitcher

11-15. Elmer Flick, Danny McClellan (NeL MMPitcher), Bobby Wallace, George Davis, Mordecai Brown.

Here's my RPA MVP ratings list for 1906, with the value in terms of run produced over the median:

1. George Stone 55.34 runs
2. Harry Lumley 46.37 runs
3. Honus Wagner 37.75 Runs
4. Frank Chance 37,45 runs
5. Harry Davis 35.93 runs
6. Tim Jordan 33.36 runs
7. Nap Lajoie 32.44 runs
8. Al Orth 32.43 runs
9. Harry Steinfeldt 32.21 runs
10. Elmer Flick 30.00 runs
11. Mordecai Brown 29.92 runs

1-Mordecai Brown: 253 ERA+, only 277 IP*
2-Honus Wagner: Leads league in Runs (Tied with Chance), .339/.416/.459/.875, 168 OPS+, +10 rField
3-Napoleon Lajoie: 48 2b, .355 BA, 170 OPS+, average fielder, 214 Hits leads league. Also leads in WAA with 7.3.
4-George Stone: 208 Hits, 25 2b, 20 3b, .358/.417/.918, 193 OPS+, +6 rField
5-Frank Chance: Leads league in OBP, Runs, SB, 158 OPS+, +11 rField for the Peerless One
6-Art Devlin: plus 15 rField at 3b, 143 OPS+, 54 SB
7-Terry Turner: 124 OPS+,an outrageous +34 rField at SS. Best season of his career by far. He'd never come within 5 WAR of this year.
8-Danny McLelland: Best NL player
9-Vic Willis: 322 IP, 153 ERA+
10-Harry Steinfeldt: .327 BA, 151 OPS+, +6 rField

*This is the largest jump from a prelim I've ever done so I feel the need for an explanation...which really comes to that 1.04 ERA, 253 ERA+, and the mammoth difference between Miner and his teammate Pfiester. The top five ERA+ SP in 1906 all had less IP than did Brown. The first big innings guy is Willis coming in 6th with an ERA+ of 153 in 322 IP. Only 3 of the top 10 SP in ERA+ threw more than 300 IP.

Now this all ties in with the shifts in starter usage that Brock was discussing a few years back.
The Cubs are kind of fascinating. They have 6 prime SP who threw between Browns high of 277 IP to 144-the high ERA is 2.21. In an era where Chesbro started 42 games, Brown led the Cubs with 32 starts. In addition, all the Cubs starters finished others games, with Ed Ruelbach leading the staff with 9 GF. Last, the Cubs actually had two (Crappy) spare pitchers, each of whom logged 70 IP with 6 and 8 starts each.

Compare that to McGraw, whose 5 man staff all had between 25-37 starts and whose pen was essentially one guy that logged 52 IP.

Chance rolled in one other pitcher (the immortal Orval Overall) because he had a talented staff that allowed him to do so, but opted to use two "meh" pitchers to eat up innings...which allow his starters to thrive. I'm not going to knock Brown because of his managers strategy, especially in light of the fact that of the top five in ERA+, he has the most IP, the second most starts, the most complete games, Nine freaking shutouts and that absurd gap between his ERA+ and Pfiester. He was the unquestioned ace on the best staff of the year and one of the all time staffs. The man simply dominated the league in ways I don't see Wagner et.al. doing. The main thing dragging him down in my prelim was his standings in WS and fWAR, both of which are skewed by the IP situation Brock outlined so well and whose comments/analysis are taken into consideration here.
Hence my vote.

1906 MMP ballot.

1. Honus Wagner
2. George Stone
3. Mordecai Brown. Huge domination in ERA boosts rating.
4. Art Devlin
5. Nap Lajoie
6. Roger Bresnahan
7. Harry Steinfeldt
8. Vic Willis
9. Pete Hill. Also considered "Rube" Foster, Jose Munoz and
Danny McClellan
10. Harry Lumley

Voted last year, haven't yet this year

Neilsen
Yardape

I didn't see a prelim from either and I haven't had an extension request so I'm closing the election.