1) Mickey Mantle - 1.3 batting wins ahead of Mays, 1 fielding win behind Mays. Close but I'll go with Mantle. Good postseason too.
2) Willie Mays
3) Ernie Banks - best SS by a big margin
4) Rocky Colavito - deserves more detail than I can say about him
5) Henry Aaron - postseason bumps him ahead of Ashburn
6) Richie Ashburn - not up to his usual excellent fielding standards
7) Ken Boyer - rated 2.6 fielding wins above average. Outstanding defender
8) Warren Spahn - Bulk beats rate this year and his postseason innings add to his resume to get him over 300IP.
9) Bob Cerv - good glove year
10) Jackie Jensen - Not a good MVP choice but we've seen worse

11-15) Pete Runnels, Sam Jones, Robin Roberts, Frank Lary, Whitey Ford
16-20) Sherm Lollar, Ted Williams, Bob Skinner, Jack Harsh, Al Kaline, Roy Sievers

1958 Final Ballot

1. Willie Mays, CF, San Francisco Giants: Mays wins a very close three-way race for the top spot thanks to a 165 OPS+ and +15 fielding
2. Ernie Banks, SS, Chicago Cubs: 2nd in OPS+ and RC to Mays, plus +10 fielding at shortstop
3. Mickey Mantle, CF, New York Yankees: poor defensive play drags Mantle down a bit; still a great hitter with league leading numbers in OPS+ (188) and RC (147)
4. Hank Aaron, RF/CF, Milwaukee Braves: 152 OPS+ and good enough defensively to play a quarter of his games in center field
5. Rocky Colavito, RF, Cleveland Indians: an outstanding 180 OPS+ but only -1 in right field
6. Whitey Ford, P, New York Yankees: light on innings pitched at only 219 but his 177 ERA+ is best in the majors by 22
7. Richie Ashburn, CF, Philadelphia Phillies: I really had no idea that Ashburn was this good but he keeps making the second half of my ballot year after year
8. Bob Cerv, LF, Kansas City Athletics: 159 OPS+ and +11 fielding
9. Stu Miller, RP/SP, San Francisco Giants: I ran my numbers again for the swing-man Miller (20 starts, 21 relief appearances) and could have moved him ahead of Cerv or behind Williams but his league-leading ERA+ and WAR per IP still make him the best pitcher in the NL in my book
10. Ted Williams, LF, Boston Red Sox: Teddy Ballgame could have used some time at DH; his -17 fielding is brutal and detracts from his still impressive 179 OPS+

11. Sam Jones, P, St. Louis Cardinals- the best starting pitcher in the senior circuit
12. Jackie Jensen, RF, Boston Red Sox
13. Pete Runnels, 2B/1B, Boston Red Sox- he would have been higher if he had played 2B full-time
14. Warren Spahn, P, Milwaukee Braves
15. Ken Boyer, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals

Official 1958 MMP Ballot (no postseason bonuses and a league adjustment for AL players):

1) Willie Mays: Best ML player and center fielder.
2) Mickey Mantle: Best AL player and center fielder.
3) Rocky Colavito: Best ML right fielder.
4) Ernie Banks: Best ML shortstop.
5) Hank Aaron: Best NL right fielder.
6) Warren Spahn: Best ML pitcher.
7) Richie Ashburn
8) Bob Cerv: Best ML left fielder.
9) Ted Williams: Getting close to the end.
10) Dick Hyde: Best ML reliever and AL pitcher.

Del Crandall and Jackie Jensen had been on my prelim, but Williams and Hyde knocked them off.

1958 Final Ballot

Batters: start with RAA (using value added runs), 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 value added runs.

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). Add Hitter WAR for overall WARR.

1. Willie Mays 9.22 WARR
2. Mickey Mantle 8.07 WARR
3. Ernie Banks 7.61 WARR
4. Bob Cerv 7.26 WARR
5. Al Kaline 6.94 WARR
6. Richie Ashburn 6.30 WARR
7. Hank Aaron 5.49 WARR
8. Stan Musial 5.20 WARR
9. Warren Spahn 5.04 WARR
10. Rocky Colavito 4.98 WARR

Rest of the top 20
Jackie Jensen
Frank Lary
Ken Boyer
Sherm Lollar
Pete Runnels
Eddie Mathews
Walt Moryn
Norm Siebern
Bob Skinner
Del Crandall

Final ballot same as prelim:

1)Willie the aMaysing
2)Ernie Banks
3)Mickey Mantle
4)Richie Ashburn
5)Hank Aaron
6)Rocky Colavito
7)Al Kaline
8)Bob Cerv
9)Frank Lary, Yankee Killer – AL’s best pitcher in my book.
10)Ken Boyer

Just missed – Pete Runnels, Eddie Mathews, Sam Jones (top NL pitcher), Robin Roberts, Jack Harshman, Whitey Ford, Warren Spahn.

1958 final. Comments are on prelim.

1-Mantle
2-Mays
3-Banks
4-Aaron
5-Colavito
6-Ashburn
7-Spahn:(WS performance keeps him here over Ford, who shanked in the Fall Classic)
8-Cerv
9-Kaline
10-Jensen

Best of the rest, in order: Lary, Burdette, Ford, Matthews, Roberts

1958 ballot.

1. Willie Mays
2. Mickey Mantle
3. Ernie Banks
4. Hank Aaron
5. Rocky Colavito
6. Del Crandall
7. Bob Cerv
8. Ken Boyer
9. Warren Spahn
10. not-so-sad Sam Jones

1958 ballot.
assortment of "uber-stat" systems.
10% catcher bonus.
no postseason consideration.

1 Mays, Willie 9893
2 Mantle, Mickey 9600
3 Banks, Ernie 8140
4 Colavito, Rocky 7192
5 Aaron, Hank 7004
6 Ashburn, Richie 6635
7 Cerv, Bob 6591
8 Spahn, Warren 6532
9 Jensen, Jackie 5830
10 Boyer, Ken 5767

11 Kaline, Al 5735
12 Lary, Frank 5635
13 Jones, Sam 5558
14 Runnels, Pete 5427
15 Roberts, Robin 5368

This is Brock Hanke’s MMP ballot for 1958. As you know, I’ve been reveling in the consensus that Win Shares and WAR have had the last few years. Well, that stopped again this year. For me, this is just information; one of the best features of the MMP concept is that it allows you to see the different results that different systems generate. This info should be useful, sometime, for the people who actually draw up systems.

I’m gong to list the players without comments first, for ease of tabulation, and then some commentary. For one thing, like last year, I’m going to list the Win Shares ordinal and the WAR ordinal, from DL’s discussion thread, and the sum. Remember, the lower the sum the higher the ranking.

1. Willie Mays (2+1=3)
2. Ernie Banks (3+2=5)
3. Mickey Mantle (1+3=4)
4. Hank Aaron (4+4=8)
5. Richie Ashburn (7+5=12)
6. Bob Cerv (6+10=16)
7. Rocky Colavito (5+11=16)
8. Warren Spahn (8+12=20)
9. Ken Boyer (11+13=24)
10. Eddie Mathews (16+9=25)

I slid Ernie Banks ahead of Mickey Mantle because there are three CFs in the top five players, while the next SS behind Banks is Luis Aparicio, who is way behind Ernie. I picked Bob Cerv to win the tie-breaker with Rocky Colavito just because we may not see Cerv again, while Rocky will probably show up on a few lists.

The 9th and 10th spots are a mess. I went with the system results, which have Boyer and Mathews just ahead of Al Kaline (19+7=26), Pete Runnels (12+14=26), and Jackie Jensen (9+18=27). Speaking of Kaline, note that the #6, #7, and #8 on the WAR ordinals are not on my ballot. Win Shares just does not agree with WAR on these three guys. WAR #6 (Frank Lary) and WAR #8 (Robin Roberts) are examples of what has become a recurring theme – WAR just plain tends to rank pitchers higher than Win Shares does. They were 25th and 36th on the Win Shares ordinals. Note that Kaline has much better consensus than either of the two pitchers. In fact, Win Shares thinks that Sad Sam Jones (18+15=33) was better than either Lary or Roberts. And then there’s Roy Sievers: tenth in Win Shares but 41st in WAR. It’s like they couldn’t possibly be evaluating the same player.

1958 Final Ballot:

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. Willie Mays (58.72)
2. Mickey Mantle (51.02) – AL MMP
3. Ernie Banks (50.82)
4. Richie Ashburn (40.32)
5. Hank Aaron (35.40)
6. Rocky Colavito (34.26)
7. Bob Cerv (33.43)
8. Sam Jones (31.10) – MMPitcher
9. Al Kaline (30.87)
10. Ken Boyer (30.58)

11-15. Mathews, Roberts, Lary (top AL Pitcher), Spahn, Jensen.

I am a long time reader (but zero-time contributor) to these threads. I have a pretty fair understanding of both the analysis and the history, and I think everyone here does a great job.

By the middle 1950s, and extending for at least 15 years, there was a large and growing league imbalance that is (understandably) not accounted for by most measurements. I had an email conversation with Bill James about this a few years ago, and he agreed that Win Shares can not really solve this problem. Mickey Mantle's Win Shares are not comparable to Willie Mays' Win Shares, just like Mickey Mantle's three MVP awards are not (necessarily) comparable to Mays's two. I am not persuaded that traditional attempts to correct for this are sufficient.

The study I was working on had to do with integration, and in particular the percentage of Win Shares (this is before WAR was readily available) that were accounted for by dark-skinned players (African-Americans and Afro-Latinos). While working on this, I was able to measure the extraordinary difference in the leagues -- by the late 1950s, the difference in black talent was larger than 40 Win Shares per team. Had you given each AL team Willie Mays in his prime, the league would still have been behind the NL in black talent. (For background, here is the paper that I wrote). This was several years ago.

At the time I contacted James to get his feedback. He agreed with my findings and that it was not the job of Win Shares to know or care about this. Win Shares divides league wins amongst its separate player pools. The issue I was interested in here is not why this happened, or how it happened, but what this means for league imbalance. I do not believe that the AL had sufficiently better white talent to make up this gulf. All of the white "stars" in the AL (Jensen, Cerv, Colavito, even Kaline, Brooks R, etc.) were not (quite) as good as their stats would suggest.

My own adjustment, half analysis and half informed guess, is that the imbalance was large enough that Mantle was not as good as Mays in 1957 and certainly not in 1958. Throughout the 1960s, I believe that 80% of the best players were in the AL. When Frank Robinson switched leagues, the results were inevitable.

Sorry, the next-to-last sentence should read: Throughout the 1960s, I believe that 80% of the best players were in the *NL*.

1958 Final Ballot

1. Willie Mays
2. Ernie Banks
3. Mickey Mantle
4. Hank Aaron
5. Richie Ashburn
6. Robin Roberts
7. Rocky Colivato
8. Al Kaline
9. Eddie Mathews
10. Stan Musial

11. Bob Cerv
12. Whitey Ford
13. Sam Jones
14. Ken Boyer
15. Warren Spahn

1958 ballot, no postseason bonus but some small bonuses in some cases for playing on a Pennant contender

1. Mays
2. Banks
3. Mantle
4. Aaron
5. Ashburn
6. Spahn
7. Colavito
8. Cerv
9. Lary
10.Jensen

Close: Runnels, Kaline, Pierce, T Williams, Crandall, Ford, R Roberts, and Miñoso

That's everyone who usually votes

Ballot is closed