1957 ballot

1) Mickey Mantle - awesome again. Tops his 1956 for the best season of the 50s so far.
2) Ted Williams - 2nd best hitter
3) Nellie Fox - very good defense. Positional average for 2B is closer to replacement than it is for CF this year. Mays tops Fox in WAR but not WAPA.
4) Willie Mays - glove rates average this year
5) Henry Aaron
6) Ernie Banks - below average glove
7) Frank Sullivan - top pitcher
8) Eddie Mathews - below average glove
9) Gil McDougald - good glove
10) Jim Bunning - almost makes up the gap with Sullivan by innings pitched and better hitting but not quite

11-15) Stan Musial, Roy Sievers, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres, Red Schoendienst
16-19) Frank Robinson, Charlie Maxwell, Minnie Minoso, Gene Woodling

1957 Ballot

1. Mickey Mantle, CF, New York Yankees
2. Ted Williams, LF, Boston Red Sox: an incredible battle between two all-time greats; Williams was first in OPS+ 233 to 221, Mantle first in Runs Created 178 to 167; Mantle edges out Williams by playing the tougher defensive position
3. Willie Mays, CF, New York Giants: first in OPS+ and RC (173 and 145 respectively)
4. Hank Aaron, RF/CF, Milwaukee Braves: third in OPS+, 2nd in RC, adds +4 on defense while spending nearly half the time in centerfield
5. Eddie Mathews, 3B, Milwaukee Braves: top five in both OPS+ and RC while adding +3 fielding from the hot corner
6. Stan Musial, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals: 2nd in OPS+, 3rd in RC, but doesn't add the defensive value of Hammerin' Hank
7. Ernie Banks, SS/3B, Chicago Cubs: top five in both OPS+ and RC but drops -7 fielding runs between shortstop and third base
8. Roy Sievers, LF/1B, Washington Senators: 3rd in OPS+ and RC though he gives a lot back on defense (-14 fielding runs)
9. Nellie Fox, 2B, Chicago White Sox: a 124 OPS+ to go along with +15 defense
10. Jim Bunning, P, Detroit Tigers: the best pitcher in the AL based on the combination of quality (144 ERA+) and quantity (a league leading 267 innings pitched)

11. Frank Robinson, RF/CF, Cincinnati Reds
12. Frank Sullivan, P, Boston Red Sox: just a notch below Bunning
13. Warren Spahn, P, Milwaukee Braves: 130 ERA+ is fourth in the NL, 271 innings pitched are second
14. Don Drysdale, P, Brooklyn Dodgers: 153 ERA+ is good for second but 221 innings don't crack the top ten
15. Duke Snider, CF, Brooklyn Dodgers: slowing down defensively but still good enough with the bat (143 OPS+)
16. Gil McDougald, SS, New York Yankees: a 120 OPS+ to go along with +14 defense
17. Red Schoendienst, 2B, New York-Milwaukee: a great swansong for the elder statesman of second base
18. Johnny Podres, P, Brooklyn Dodgers
19. Bob Friend, P, Pittsburgh Pirates
20. Minnie Minoso, LF, Chicago White Sox

Batters: start with RAA (using customized linear weights), adjust for park, position and defense (using DRA) Convert adjusted RAA to wins. Add 60% of normal Runs above replacement to get WARR (wins above reduced replacement)

Pitchers: Calculate RAA using a pitchers FIP and calculate RAA using a pitcher's RA9.

Calculate RAA, using a blend of RA9 and FIP from above, adjust for quality of opposition and park. Convert adjusted RAA to wins. Add 60% of normal runs above replacement to get WARR (wins above reduced replacement)

1. Mickey Mantle 9.71 WARR
2. Willie Mays 7.95 WARR
3. Ted Williams 7.58 WARR
4. Hank Aaron 7.26 WARR
5. Stan Musial 6.13 WARR
6. Eddie Mathews 6.01 WARR
7. Frank Robinson 5.75 WARR
8. Nellie Fox 5.39 WARR
9. Ernie Banks 4.82 WARR
10. Frank Sullivan 4.80 WARR

Rest of top 20
Don Drysdale
Roy Sievers
Johnny Podres
Ed Bouchee
Charlie Maxwell
Jim Bunning
Richie Ashburn
Gil McDougald
Billy Pierce
Johnny Logan

1957 MMP ballot

1. Mickey Mantle
2. Eddie Mathews
3. Ted Williams
4. Willie Mays
5. Hank Aaron
6. Stan Musial
7. Yogi Berra
8. Nellie Fox
9. Jim Bunning
10. Don Drysdale

1957 Final Ballot:
{10% catcher bonus; no postseason considered. My usual assortment of "uber-stat" systems}

1 Mantle, Mickey 10000
2 Williams, Ted 7718
3 Mays, Willie 6857
4 Aaron, Hank 6558
5 Mathews, Eddie 5982
6 Fox, Nellie 5787
7 Musial, Stan 5610
8 Sullivan, Frank 5295
9 Banks, Ernie 5095
10 Sievers, Roy 4968

11 Robinson, Frank 4951
12 Bunning, Jim 4919
13 McDougald, Gil 4759
14 Drysdale, Don 4562
15 Ashburn, Richie 4405

57 Final

1-Mantle: 34 HR, 146 BB, .365/.512/.665/1.177, 221 OPS+, plus baserunner, good fielder. The Best Season of His Career (BSoHC), which, considering who it’s being said of, means that this is as good as it gets at Center
2-Aaron: 44 HR, .322/.378/.600/.978, 166 OPS+, 369 TB, plus fielder, decent baserunner. Status as post season deity (3 HR, .393/.414/.786/1.200 OPS) puts The Hammer over Teddy Ballgame.
3-Theodore S-One of the great old seasons in history, 38 HR, wins the stathead triple crown going .388/.526/.731/1.257 for a 233 OPS+
4-Matthews: 32 HR, 154 OPS+, slightly better than average glove at the hot corner, hit .227 in the WS still managed a .933 OPS.
5-Mays: Shows NY what they’ll be missing, going 26 2B, 20 3b, 35 HR, 38 SB (19 CS), .333/.407/.626/1.033, 173 OPS on the way out the door to the West Coast.
6-Banks: 43 HR, 149 OPS+, 344 TB. Done in by -7 Rfield. Still, especially in the 50’s, I’m taking a SS, even a 2/3 time SS, with that kind of power over a single hitting 2b
7-Fox: The Mighty Mite leads the league in hits and puts up 75 BB on his way to a 124 OPS+. Add in +15 Rfield at 2b and +7 Rbaser and that’s a nice year. Per WAR, it’s his career year.
8-Frank Robinson: 29 HR, .322/.376/.529/.905, 135 OPS+, 12 HBP, +18 Rfield
9-Sievers: League leading 42 HR and 331 TB hitting in Washington which is quasi miraculous. Drove in 114 RBI out of 603 runs the Senators scored in 57. Awful defense counters his terrific offense. -14 Rfield leads to -2.4 dWAR.
10-Frank Sullivan: 2.73 ERA in Fenway (110 PF in 57), 149 ERA+. Top pitcher.

The best of the rest: Spahn, Bunning, McDougald, Lary and Musial.

1957 final ballot

1. Mickey Mantle - The combination of Mick's bat and his fielding in CF squeezes him ahead of Ted.
2. Ted Williams. Monster year by MLB's best hitter.
3. Willie Mays - Best hitter in the league and leads MLB in steals for the second year in a row. Second 30/30 season and also hits for a rare 20/20/20/20 year.
4. Aaron - breakout MVP year but still second best to Willie Mays.
5. Ernie Banks - the years best SS.
6. Nellie Fox
7. Eddie Mathews
8.. Frank Robinson - Still learning to play the Crosley incline in left. Decent year with the bat. Happy birthday Frank !.
9. Stan Musial - 36 yrs. old and still raking it with the younger guys
10 Don Drysdale - fine year for Drysdale pitching in Ebbetts field for the last season.

1957 Final Ballot (Sorry I didn’t get to post a prelim – most of my spare time this month was spent on fantasy football):

I use a combination of WAR systems to get an average WAR for each player. I use that number to get a Dan R-style salary estimation. I divide that salary by $1 million and add 3 times the average WAR to that dividend. I use a 20% bonus for catchers and do not credit postseason except as a tiebreaker.

1. Mickey Mantle (73.74)
2. Ted Williams (54.36)
3. Willie Mays (47.93)- NL MMP
4. Hank Aaron (40.92)
5. Eddie Mathews (38.21)
6. Nellie Fox (36.77)
7. Stan Musial (35.28)
8. Frank Sullivan (34.42) – MMPitcher
9. Frank Robinson (32.51)
10. Ernie Banks (30.93)

11-15. McDougald, Drysdale (top NL pitcher), Bunning, Podres, Ashburn.

and leads MLB in steals for the second year in a row

Mays stole 38 and got caught 19, which, seeing how one needs about a 70% success rate, more than negates any gains he had from stealing.
That said, I also noted and liked the 20/20/20/20. It's an unusual feat

Official Top 10 same as prelim:
1)Mickey, of course
2)Teddy Ballgame
3)Nellie Fox – what an amazing year. Got his OBA over .400 and played outstanding defense at 2B
4)Willie Mays
5)Hammerin Hank’s big breakout season – who knew there were so many to follow? #44 hit 44 HRs for the first of 4 times.
6)Eddie Mathews – yet another solid season from the perennial champion of the hot corner.
7)Gil McDougald – ok, some will think I have him too high here, maybe – but I think this was the actual season that crazy Minnesota baseball writer in 1967 thought Cesar Tovar had. Supersub McDougald filled in spectacularly at SS, 3B and 2B and was quite possibly the best fielder in the league at all 3 positions!
8)Ernie Banks – how does a skinny shortstop hit 43 HRs? Baseball had not seen anyone like Ernie before he came along – I’m not sure we’ve seen one since, either.
9)Stan Musial – good year for old geezers bouncing back!
10)I’m going with another different pick here – Frank Sullivan of the Red Sox as best AL pitcher. He put up some terrific numbers despite pitching in Fenway. I think he slightly edges Bunning IMHO.

Just missed – Bunning, Don Drysdale as best NL pitcher, Frank Robinson, Roy Sievers, Warren Spahn, Red Schoendienst.

Final ballot, no postseason credit but some small credit for playing in Pennant race
1. Mantle
2. Williams
3. Aaron
4. Mays
5. Fox
6. Musial
7. Mathews
8. Banks
9. Bunning
10.F Robinson

Honorable mention: I really wanted to throw Minnie Miñoso a vote but he just fell shy for last spot. Also, Pierce, Schoendiest, and my top NL pitcher Warren Spahn

Here is Brock Hanke's ballot for 1957. To my surprize, this year has even more consensus between WAR and Win Shares than last year. This means that it's not just a fluke; there is something going on here that is making the systems agree. This is probably important information, and I intend to post it up in appropriate places, like the Hall of Merit discussion thread. The idea is that the people who work on the different systems can take a look at the mid-1950s here, and try to see what is different in this period than in any other, on the assumption that the differences might allow the system makers to figure out some things that are unquestionably true, no matter how you evaluate them. This should be helpful when trying to reconcile the seasons where there are large differences between systems. If some of you do work on the guts of systems, and this info does turn out to be helpful, please let me know. Wide variances between WAR and Win Shares are just a nuisance.

Since there aren't a lot of differences to explain, I'm going to put my comments in the ballot. I don't think these few comments will interfere with tabulation. If they do, please let me know that, too. I'm also going to include the ordinal rankings (Win Shares, then WAR) and the sum of them. For example, Mickey Mantle has the highest Win Shares and WAR. That means his sum is 1+1 = 2. Two is obviously the lowest possible score in this approach, so Mickey ranks #1 on the ballot. This should give you an idea how close the rankings are to each other.

1. Mickey Mantle (1+1 =2)
2. Ted Williams (2+2= 4)
3. Hank Aaron (3+4 = 7) Aaron is tied with Willie Mays in my system here, but Hank also had great fun disposing of Yankee pitching in the World Series, so he gets a bonus.
4. Willie Mays (4+3 = 7)
5. Eddie Mathews (5+6 = 11)
6. Nellie Fox (7+5 = 12) Win Shares skips a place here: Mathews is #5; Fox is #7. Win Shares #6 is the only top-ten ordinal, in either system, that is not attached to someone who made the top ten. See Roy Sievers in the Jim Bunning comment.
7. Stan Musial (8+10 = 18) Musial is tied with Ernie Banks and Frank Robinson. Since I have slightly more trust in Win Shares than WAR, I listed them in order of Win Shares.
8. Ernie Banks (9+9 = 18)
9. Frank Robinson (10+8 = 18)
10. Jim Bunning (17 + 7 = 24) Bunning is the only player on my ballot whose ordinals disagree by more than 2 slots. I have NEVER seen any consensus anything like this. Bunning is just one point ahead of Gil McDougald, but Gil did not play well in the Series. Roy Sievers, close to McDougal and Bunning, and having the missing #6 rank in Win Shares (6+23 = 29), had his breakout season and would have been a "must do", but inserting him would mean dropping Bunning, who has almost the same credentials as Roy. It might be worth noting that Sievers had all his black ink in this year, and finished 3rd in the MVP voting. Win Shares supports the MVP vote. WAR does not. But, then, Bunning also had his breakout season in 1957, and was the best pitcher in baseball. WAR supports that a lot more than Win Shares does, although Win Shares does have him as the highest-ranked pitcher in the game.

Bunning is, of course, the best pitcher in the AL (he came up with the Tigers and was only later traded to Philly), although Frank Sullivan is pretty close. Warren Spahn (25+24 = 49) and Don Drysdale (27+12 = 39) are the candidates for the best NL pitcher. Spahn won the Cy Young award, but did not pitch well in the World Series, although the Braves won. (in 1958, he pitched well in the Series, but the Braves lost anyway). He has Win Shares / WAR consensus. Drysdale has Spahn outranked because WAR has him ranked #12. One reason I don't trust WAR is that its pitcher placements are sometimes just at odds with Win Shares plus my memory. Still, Don outranks Spahn by ten ordinals, so I have to place him as the #1 NL pitcher. - Brock Hanke

Just waiting for John Murphy's ballot and we'll have everyone

My ballot will be posted within the next couple of hours.

Official 1957 MMP Ballot (no postseason credit and a deduction for AL players):

1) Mickey Mantle: Best ML player and center fielder - Teddy Ballgame isn't even close.
2) Ted Williams: Best ML left fielder - getting close to the end, but he's still able to produce his last monster season.
3) Willie Mays: Best NL player and center fielder.
4) Hank Aaron: Best ML right fielder.
5) Eddie Mathews: Best ML third baseman.
6) Nellie Fox: Best ML second baseman.
7) Stan Musial: Best ML first baseman.
8) Ernie Banks: Best ML shortstop.
9) Roy Sievers
10) Don Drysdale: Best ML pitcher.

Best AL pitcher: Jim Bunning

balloting is closed