Final ballot-no postseason credit but some small credit for playing for a Pennant-contender

1. Lefty Grove -overall a weak year for pitchers but Grove stands tall & edges Ruth for top spot
2. Babe Ruth
3. Lou Gehrig -top 3 were close
4. Hack Wilson -Hack's record RBI year is just a tick better than Terry's .401 BA for NL MMP
5. Bill Terry
6. Al Simmons -as good as they were the Philadelphia Athletics are an underrated team historically
7. Jimmie Foxx
8. Joe Cronin -glove puts him in top 10
9. Willie Wells
10.Wes Ferrell -beats out Babe Herman for final spot

Dazzy Vance is top NL pitcher in a particularly rough year for Senior Circuit hurlers.

3. bjhanke Posted: August 27, 2020 at 02:45 AM (#5972524)
I know that the ballot thread isn't up yet, but I was able to get on here with commenting privileges and, rather than wait for disaster at the deadline, I posted up here. Please transfer this to the ballot thread and count it as is. I had almost no decisions to make when compiling this ballot, so there is approximately no chance that I will want to change it.

Hi. This is Brock Hanke’s MMP Ballot for 1930. It’s a very straightforward ballot this time, because there is a lot of consensus between WS and WAR at the top. I only had to make three decisions. First, whether to put Ruth or Grove in the top slot. By the ordinals, they are tied, and there is not even a whole run of difference bwteen them in either WS or WAR. I put Grove ahead because of postseason credit, which I will assume is just fine by the other voters. In the tenth slot, I had Jimmy Foxx and Babe Herman. In the ordinals, Herman is one whole slot ahead of Foxx. But, again, the difference between them does not amount to a whole run in either WS or WAR. And again, I picked Foxx because of postseason credit. The last decision was where to put Devil Wells. I generally look for a gap in the ordinal rankings to put the Negro League player into, but there isn’t really a serious gap anywhere. I ended up listing him fourth because I think that, in general, Devil Wells was a better player than Joe Cronin. Anyway, here’s the list:

1. Lefty Grove
2. Babe Ruth
3. Lou Gehrig
4. Devil Wells
5. Al Simmons
6. Joe Cronin
7. Wes Ferrell
8. Hack Wilson
9. Bill Terry
10. Jimmy Foxx

1930 Final Ballot

1. Joe Cronin 9.67 WARR
2. Babe Ruth 9.64 WARR
3. Lefty Grove 9.10 WARR
4. Bill Terry 8.66 WAEE
5. Lou Gehrig 8.32 WARR
6. Wes Farrell 7.40 WARR
7. Al Simmons 7.18 WARR
8. Ted Lyons 6.87 WARR
9. Willie Wells 6.80 WARR
10. Jimmie Foxx 6.64 WARR

Rest of the top 20
11. Ted Radcliffe
12. Dazzy Vance
13. Kiki Cuyler
14. Frankie Frisch
15. Chuck Klein
16. Mel Ott
17 Joe Williams
18. Ed Morgan
19. Pat Malone
20 Charlie Gehringer.

1930 Ballot

1) Willie Wells - He's clearly the best player in the Negro Leagues and possibly the best hitter in the Negro Leagues. His MLEs have him with an RBat of 62. Joe Cronin has an RBat of 36 so that's a 2.5 win advantage for Wells at the plate. Cronin was a very good fielder in 1930 (2.2 FWAA) but Wells was probably above average at age 25 (MLE of 0.6). That makes Willie Wells nearly a full win better than Joe Cronin. 1930 was a season where runs were cheap but not necessarily at SS. In Dan R's MLEs the replacement value for a shortstop is crazy high. He's #1 without a doubt for me.
2) Lefty Grove - best pitcher by a significant margin, gets postseason bump
3) Joe Cronin - Shortstops worth a darn are scarce in 1930.
4) Babe Ruth
5) Lou Gehrig - Ruth and Gehrig are very close for best available bat. Both were below average defenders at positions loaded with hitters.
6) Wes Ferrell - lots of innings pitched
7) Lefty Stewart - pitched better than Ferrell but not as many innings and not as good at the plate
8) Willie Foster - Great K/BB ratio and his RA+ ranking was better than his ERA+ ranking.
9) Mickey Cochrane - best catcher and the framing studies, though admittedly lacking data, suggest he was one of the best of his era which would be uncaptured value. Postseason bump.
10) Mule Suttles - Great bat, probably the best NGL hitter but Wells was close

11-15) Al Simmons, Newt Allen, Bill Holland, Chuck Klein, Hack Wilson
16-20) Gabby Hartnett, Dazzy Vance, Charlie Gehringer, Babe Herman, Bill Terry
21-26) Mel Ott, Satchel Paige, Jimmie Foxx, Kiki Cuyler, Martin Dihigo, William Bell

1930 Ballot

1. Babe Ruth, RF, New York Yankees: start of a new decade but he's still the best hitter in baseball with a 211 OPS+
2. Lou Gehrig, 1B, New York Yankees: no slouch in second place, 203 OPS+ and AL-leading 192 runs created
3. Willie Wells, SS, St. Louis Stars: huge offensive year with 203 OPS+ though his defense dipped a little
4. Hack Wilson, CF, Chicago Cubs: 177 OPS+ leads the Senior Circuit
5. Babe Herman, RF, Brooklyn Robins
6. Chuck Klein, RF, Philadelphia Phillies
7. Al Simmons, LF, Philadelphia Athletics
8. Mule Suttles, LF, St. Louis Stars: a parade of big bats from the other Babe to the Mule
9. Gabby Hartnett, C, Chicago Cubs: 144 OPS+ and +2 fielding
10. Lefty Grove, P, Philadelphia Athletics: best pitcher in baseball; I would've felt bad if I left him off

11. Bill Terry, 1B, New York Giants: one more big bat, would have been worthy most years
12. Joe Cronin, SS, Washington Senators: another great season that would have made a mid-ballot slot most of the time
13. Dazzy Vance, P, Brooklyn Robins: best pitcher in NL
14. Jimmie Foxx, 1B, Philadelphia Athletics
15. Freddie Lindstrom, 3B, New York Giants
16. Woody English, 2B, Chicago Cubs: a great peak
17. Mickey Cochrane, C, Detroit Tigers
18. Ted Radcliffe, P/C, St. Louis Stars: "Double Duty" earns his nickname with a 176 ERA+ in 122 IP and 55 games at Catcher
19. Goose Goslin, LF, Senators/Browns
20. Wes Ferrell, P, Cleveland Indians

I'm going to extend the end date a week. I know people have had trouble posting ballots and I opened late.

Thanks DL!

1. Willie Wells: I agree with DL's reasoning above. Cronin is close to the top of my ballot, and Wells is better.
2. Hack Wilson: Not just RBIs
3. Joe Cronin: Great glove, good hitting at a premium position.
4. Lou Gehrig
5. Babe Ruth: The two Yankees are basically equal.
6. Gabby Hartnett
7. Bill Terry
8. Charlie Gehringer
9. Cool Papa Bell
10. Lefty Grove

Off-ballot: Woody English, Carl Reynolds, Turkey Stearnes, Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane.

Best NL pitcher: Dazzy Vance
Best NgL pitcher: William Bell

Are people just getting tired of voting for Ruth, because that's a hell of a season.

Voting is closed