1916 Prelim

1) Pete Alexander - sustained excellence with almost 400 innings
2) Tris Speaker - best bat
3) Joe Williams - great rate stats this season, good bat too
4) Ty Cobb
5) Walter Johnson
6) Louis Santop - best rate production for hitting in his career is 1916-1918 (ages 27-29). Best catcher by a huge margin.
7) Babe Ruth - expect this won't be his only time on my ballot
8) Zack Wheat
9) Heinie Groh - good glove for Wheat and Groh
10) Eddie Collins

11-15) Joe Jackson, Juan Padron, Art Fletcher, John Henry Lloyd, Cristobal Torriente
16-21) Max Carey, Dick Redding, Jeff Pfeffer, Bobby Veach, George Sisler, Rabbit Maranville

Eric C MLE's for 1916

Moore and Rogan are with the Wreckers at this time

Player Age Lg Pos  PA  Rbat Rbaser Rfield Rpos  RAA   WAA  Rrep RAR   WAR
=========================================================================
Lloyd  32 NL SS    600   23    0    0     2     9   34   4.2   19   53   6.6
Torriente  22 NL  CF  580   35    1       0   - 3    32   3.9   18   50   6.3
Santop  27 NL  C  480   26    0       0    7   33   4.0   15   48   5.9
Rogan  22 NL  CF  560   31    1       4   - 7   28   3.5   17   46   5.8
Pettus  31 NL 1B    590   24    0    0     6   - 4   27   3.3   18   45   5.7
Earle  32  NL CF   580   24    1      0     - 3    21   2.6   18   39   4.9
B Taylor  27 NL  1B  610   18    0       4   - 4   18   2.2   19   37   4.7
Hall  27  NL LF   540   28    0     -1    -6    21   2.5   17   37   4.7
McNair  27 NL  CF  580   22    0     0     - 3   19   2.3   18   37   4.6
Hill  33 NL CF   570   17    0    0     2    -3   17   2.1   18   34   4.3
Wiley 29  NL  C  370   17    0       0     5   22   2.7  13   35   4.3
Poles  28 NL  CF  570    7    1    0     3   - 3     8   1.0   19   27   3.5
Chacon  27 NL SS    530  - 2    0      2     8    9   1.1   17   25   3.2
Lyons  26 NL  LF   540   10     1     0     2    - 6     7   0.9   17   24   3.0
Pierce  26 NL  1B    490   10   -1       3   - 4    9   1.1   15   24   3.0
Petway 30  NL  C  410  - 6    0       1     6    1   0.1  14   15   1.9
Charleston  19 NL  CF  200    6    1     - 1   - 1    5   0.6    6   11   1.4
D Moore  20 NL  SS  110    5    0       2    2    9   1.1    3   12   1.5

               PITCHING          |  BATTING    |  TOTAL
PITCHER  AGE   IP  RAA   WAA   WAR  |  PA    WAR  |   WAR
========================================================
Williams   30  250   31   4.2   6.5  |   83   0.4  |   6.9
Padron   23  310   26   3.5   6.4  |  103  -0.5  |   6.0
Donaldson   25  310   18   2.4   5.3  |  103   0.4  |   5.7
Redding   26  310   18   2.4   5.3  |  103   0.2  |   5.5
Rogan   22  210   20   2.6   4.6  |   70   0.7  |   5.2 
Junco   26  250    8   1.1   3.4  |   83  -0.4  |   3.0
Pedroso   29  250    1   0.1   2.5  |   83   0.5  |   3.0 
Ball   38  150    3   0.4   1.8  |   50   0.1  |   1.9

I think a 250 inning projection for Williams is far too low.

From this terrific source: http://www.cnlbr.org/Portals/0/RL/Colored Championship Series (1900-1919).pdf

1916 Chicago American Giants vs Indianapolis ABC’s

In October of 1916 the Chicago American Giants met the Indianapolis ABC’s for the “Colored Championship of the West.” Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants team was led by the hitting of John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, Preston “Pete” Hill, Leroy Grant, Pete Duncan and Brodie Francis. Tom Johnson, Dick Whitworth and Frank “Red Ant” Wickware were the top pitchers for Chicago.

C. I. Taylor fielded a strong team for the Indianapolis ABC’s. Ben Taylor (first base), Bingo De Moss (second base), Mortie Clark (shortstop), Candy Jim Taylor (third base), Oscar Charleston (outfield) and Dave Malarcher were the top offensive stars of Indianapolis. Dizzy Dismukes was the ace of the pitching staff for the ABC’s.

The first four games of the series were played in Indianapolis, giving the ABC’s a real home team advantage from the outset. Chicago took game one by a score of 5-3 on a winning base hit by Pete Hill. The Indianapolis ABC’s shut out the Chicago American Giants in games two and three by identical scores of 1-0 in both contests. Indianapolis continued to dominate Chicago and won game four by a score of 8-2 behind the pitching of Dizzy Dismukes. Moving the series to Chicago didn’t help the American Giants as they were blown out of game five by a score of 12-8. Behind the brilliant pitching of Dizzy Dismukes who won all three of the games he started, the Indianapolis ABC’s easily defeated the Chicago American Giants four games to one to claim the bragging rights of the best colored baseball team in the West.

No championship series between teams from the East and West was played in 1916.

2016 Preliminary ballot

1. Walter Johnson 11.63 WARR
2. Tris Speaker 9.30 WARR
3. Ty Cobb 8.75 WARR
4. Reb Russell 8.55 WARR
5. Babe Ruth 8.53 WARR Excellent pitching performance but with his ability as a hitter, he probably should become a position player some day .
6. Harry Coveleski 7.72 WARR
7. Art Fletcher 7.36 His fielding skills allowed him to rise to the top of a rather poor hitting NL position player group
8. Pete Alexander 7.22 WARR
9. Max Carey 6.71 WARR
10. Burt Shotton 6.44 WARR

Rest of the top 15
Joe Williams
Bobby Veach
John Henry Lloyd
Bob Shawkey
Zack Wheat

Comment: The obvious outlier in this ballot is Reb Russell. i have been using Michael Humphreys' DIPS formula to calculate RAA for the pitchers in these years to try to mitigate the influence of the poorer defenses of pitcher evaluation. for the most part, this method has given results which place the best pitchers in approx the same order as other methods. However, with Russell, the DIPS method efected his placement more the most pitchers.

Also baseball reference uses a 3 year park factor number (which is 98 for the White Sox); whereas I believe that a one year park factor is more appropriate for this project (which is 107 for the White Sox). This fact also had a positive effect on his placement.

1916 World Series

Player Name G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SB E WPA
Larry Gardner 5 17 2 3 0 0 2 6 0 2 .176 .176 .529 .706 0 2 0.05
Harry Hooper 5 21 6 7 1 1 0 1 3 1 .333 .417 .476 .893 1 0 -0.22

Jake Daubert 4 17 1 3 0 1 0 0 2 3 .176 .263 .294 .557 0 0 -0.37
Mike Mowrey 5 17 2 3 0 0 0 1 3 2 .176 .300 .176 .476 0 2 -0.01
Zack Wheat 5 19 2 4 0 1 0 1 2 2 .211 .286 .316 .602 1 1 -0.01

Pitcher Name G GS ERA W L SV CG IP H R ER BB SO WHIP WPA
Dutch Leonard 1 1 1.00 1 0 0 1 9.0 5 2 1 4 3 1.000 0.11
Carl Mays 2 1 6.75 0 1 1 0 5.1 8 4 4 3 2 2.063 -0.06
Babe Ruth 1 1 0.64 1 0 0 1 14.0 6 1 1 3 4 0.643 1.08

Rube Marquard 2 2 5.73 0 2 0 0 11.0 12 9 7 6 9 1.636 -0.51
Jeff Pfeffer 3 1 1.69 0 1 1 0 10.2 7 5 2 4 5 1.031 0.03

Best pitching seasons in the history of the MMP project by my point score

1913 Walter Johnson 22.6
1985 Gooden 21.5
1995 Maddux 21.4
1972 Carlton 21.2
1994 Maddux 20.6
1997 Clemens 19.9
1968 Gibson 19.5
2000 P Martinez 19.5
2009 Greinke 19.1
1902 Waddell 19.1
1912 W Johnson 19.1
1944 Trout 19.0
1945 Newhouser 18.8
1963 Koufax 18.7
1946 Feller 18.6
1972 Seaver 18.3
2004 Santana 18.2
1971 Seaver 18.0
1999 P Martinez 18.0
1971 Wood 17.9
2015 Greinke 17.9
1901 Young 17.8
1916 Alexander 17.8
1978 Guidry 17.7
1972 Perry 17.7
1995 R Johnson 17.7
1980 Carlton 17.5
1953 Roberts 17.5