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1970 Ballot

1. Carl Yastrzemski, LF, Boston Red Sox: 177 OPS+, 157 runs created
2. Johnny Bench, C, Cincinnati Reds: 141 OPS+, 121 RC, +10 at Catcher
3. Willie McCovey, 1B, San Francisco Giants: 181 OPS+, 140 runs created
4. Tony Perez, 3B, Cincinnati Reds: 158 OPS+, 140 runs created
5. Jim Fregosi, SS, California Angels: 127 OPS+, 101 RC, +14 at Shortstop
6. Bob Gibson, P, St. Louis Cardinals: 133 ERA+, 294 innings, 99 OPS+ as a pitcher
7. Billy Williams, LF, Chicago Cubs: 148 OPS+, 147 runs created
8. Rico Carty, RF, Atlanta Braves: 170 OPS+, 125 runs created
9. Dick Dietz, C, San Francisco Giants: 152 OPS+, 113 runs created
10. Tommy Harper, 3B, Milwaukee Brewers: 146 OPS+, 122 runs created
11. Gaylord Perry, P, San Francisco Giants: 125 ERA+, 328 innings
12. Fergie Jenkins, P, Chicago Cubs: 132 ERA+, 313 innings

13. Bill Grabarkewitz, SS/3B/2B
14. Tom Seaver, P
15. Jim Palmer, P
16. Sam McDowell, P
17. Joe Torre, C/3B
18. Harmon Killebrew, 3B
19. Boog Powell, 1B
20. Frank Howard, LF

1970 Ballot

1) Johnny Bench - Receives a catcher bonus due to WAR overlooking many things that catchers contribute
2) Carl Yastrzemski - Great year from Yaz
3) Jim Fregosi - Ahead of Yaz on the prelim I dropped him because Yaz was better versus positional average and they were really close otherwise
4) Bob Gibson - Great pitching season and fantastic hitting season for a pitcher
5) Bert Campaneris - Good baserunning and defense helps him
6) Tony Perez - postseason credit separates him from Harper
7) Tommy Harper - Season that made his career
8) Billy Williams - good year with the glove
9) Willie McCovey - Avg defense this year
10) Sam McDowell - top AL pitcher
11) Frank Howard - 2nd only to Yaz at the plate
12) Boog Powell - good postseason separates him from Roy White

13-15) Roy White, Rico Petrocelli, Ferguson Jenkins

If I don't get my ballot posted over here can you move over my prelim?
I'm hoping to extend it but I don't expect there to be any changes in the top 12.

Certainly.

Are we not getting much participation because we're moving too fast (people too busy to keep up) or because we're moving too slow (discussions are stalling out)?

DL - I put this up today because of your question above. What keeps me from voting earlier is that I use the WAR and WS lists from the discussion thread. I wait about a week for the thread itself to start dying out, and then I go there, pencil up my ballot, and then end up waiting a couple of weeks to see if any new info comes in, which never happens. Then I vote. I'd probably vote as soon as I've pencilled up if the lists were at the top of the ballot thread as well as the discussion. Does that make any sense?

This is Brock Hanke's final ballot.

This year and the next three (through 1973), I'll be posting up fewer comments and working much more with the numbers. The reason is that, during those four years, I was resisting the Vietnam War draft. This involved all four years, six draft physicals, and the quote, "Where do I go to refuse to sign the loyalty oath? I'm going to jail." Needless to say, my interest in baseball, while not gone away, was pretty much drowned. I don't have many memories of those years; the best one by far was meeting Don Malcolm, who put up with two years of me in that condition and kept on befriending me. So unless you WANT to read several paragraphs on the difference between resisting and dodging the draft, I'll keep it at that, and just say that my memory of these years of baseball isn't the best.

- Brock Hanke

1. Carl Yaztrzemski (dominates 1b)
2. Johnny Bench
3. Bob Gibson (WAR absolutely loves him)
4. Jim Fregosi (dominates ss)
5. Tommy Harper (playing mostly 3b, of all places)
6. Sudden Sam McDowell
7. Roy White
8. Tony Oliva (dominates rf)
9. Tony Perez
10. Willie McCovey
11. Bobby Bonds
12. Gaylord Perry

My final 1970 MMP ballot:

1. Carl Yastrzemski - led AL in OBA, SLG, OPS+, WPA/LI, etc.
2. Johnny Bench - with catcher bonus, led NL with 45 HR and 148 RBI
3. Tommy Harper - 30-30 season for inaugural Milwaukee Brewers
4. Willie McCovey - led NL in SLG, OPS+, WPA, WPA/LI, REW
5. Bob Gibson - very good hitting together with very good pitching
6. Roy White - solid season with no eye-popping stats (very good 6.1 WPA)
7. Tony Perez - by far best NL 3B season
8. Billy Williams - sweet season, very good 6.0 WPA
9. Boog Powell - very good season but not sure why he won MVP
10. Harmon Killebrew - his last great season
11. Billy Grabarkewitz - his one and only good season (and it was very good)
12. Jim Fregosi - career high 22 HR in his last very good season

13. Sam McDowell - led AL with 305 innings and 304 strikeouts
14. Dick Dietz - very good offensive season as a catcher (pretty crappy defense)
15. Bobby Bonds - hit 300 with 189 strikeouts (200 hits)
16. Frank Howard - led AL with 7.5 WPA
17. Tony Oliva - most of his value is in his 325 batting average
18. Fergie Jenkins - very good season (24 CG)
19. Hank Aaron - ho hum: 38 HR as a 36 year old (very good 5.5 WPA)
20. Reggie Smith - very good season as BoSox center fielder

I would like to apologize for not participating more in the discussion for this year. I have been spending time learning about DRA and reworking my defensive numbers to combine DRA and TZ as a weighted average. I also have eliminated pitcher's fielding as an adjustment. In my reading about defense the point was made that pitcher's fielding is already reflected in the pitcher's RA.

A summary of my method for hitters: I use custom linear weights to create a weighted OBA, determine RAA, adjust for park, position and a reduced replacement value. I then adjust for fielding with a weighted average of TZ and DRA, divide by runs per win to give a wins above reduced replacement (WARR)

For pitchers: Determine RAA, adjust for park and team fielding, calculate Pythagenpat W%. From that I calculate WARR. I then adjust for pitcher hitting.

My final ballot.

1. Bob Gibson- 8.2 WARR - A very good pitching season in front of one of the poorest defenses in the league. A stellar hitting season as well.
2. Carl Yastrzemski - 7.63 WARR - Best hitter of 1970
3. Willie McCovey - 6.77 WARR - Typical McCovey year.
4. Tony Perez - 6.73 WARR - Excellent hitting season (wRC+ of 163) as an average fielding 3B.
5. Johnny Bench - 6.63 WARR - Bench and Harper scored essentially the same, but Bench gets the nod as a catcher.
6. Tommy Harper - 6.61 WARR - Excellent hitting as an above average 3B.
7. Jim Fregosi - 6.01 WARR - Best hitting SS. Above average fielding
8. Tony Oliva - 5.86 WARR - An excellent hitting season. Best fielding corner outfielder (in contention for this honour)
9. Rico Carty - 5.72 WARR - best hitting numbers (wRC+ of 180) in the NL. Didn't play enough though to rate any higher.
The last three positions were a competition between 4 pitchers, with essentially the same score. I have based their final order on their adjusted pitching scores alone.
10. Sam McDowell - 5.5 WARR
11. Fergie Jenkins - 5.5 WARR
12. Jim Palmer - 5.5 WARR

13. Tom Seaver
14. Roy White
15. Billy Williams
16. Gaylord Perry
17. Boog Powell
18. Bert Campaneris
19. Bernie Carbo
20. Billy Grabarkewitz

bjhanke - why Bobby Bonds and not Billy Williams?

A couple of things

New voters should get their ballot in today. I would encourage people to vote. There are lots of people creating their own systems to vote. I don't think it has to be that difficult. I'm of the belief that you get closer to the right answer with more perspectives than you do by creating the "perfect" system.

5 ballots won't be enough but I'll close if we reach 15 by Wednesday.

DL - Essentially, Win Shares favors Bonds over Williams by a larger margin than WAR favors Williams over Bonds. Like I said, I'm going much more with numbers than memory this year. I have no serious memory of the 1970 season. That was the first year when my draft crisis really hit. I had a draft-exempt job in 1969 programming computers, but lost it due to a back injury (car accident) followed by a depression. Most of what I remember from 1970 is trying to find out what kind of job you could get when you were USDA draft grade 1-Y and not entirely sane. The answer turned out to be driving taxis. That's almost all of what I remember from 1970. - Brock

Thanks (DL) for saying you can move my ballot over if I don't get it posted!
But I'm pleased that I've managed to get it finished up with a bit of changes.
I was hoping to get Dan R's 1970 pitcher stats updated but I'm nowhere near getting
that project done.

Anyway, here's my usual. 10% catcher bonus. no postseason bonus.
Using 7 different "uber-stats" and trying to treat each one equally.


1 bench, johnny 9474
2 yastrzemski, carl 9147
3 gibson, bob 9090
4 mcdowell, sam 8318
5 mccovey, willie 8263
6 harper, tommy 8198
7 perez, tony 8155
8 jenkins, ferguson 8015
9 fregosi, jim 8003
10 white, roy 7641
11 powell, boog 7269
12 grabarkewitz, billy 7097

13 oliva, tony 7069
14 williams, billy 7027
15 bonds, bobby 6980
16 seaver, tom 6932
17 campaneris, bert 6911
18 perry, gaylord 6795
19 howard, frank 6703
20 munson, thurmon 6699
21 carty, rico 6680
22 palmer, jim 6665
23 staub, rusty 6640
24 holtzman, ken 6521

I have not had time to massage my prelim. The timing right now is not great. Have you heard it is basketball playoffs time? I've been doing color commentary (Webcast) and covering both boys and girls high school tournaments (for a couple of Web sites) in Minnesota. I will be covering at least 16 games in the next 3 days.

But anyway, I will mostly be reiterating my prelim, though I am switching 1 and 2.

1. Bench
2. Yaz
3. Perez
4. Fregosi
5. Harper
6. Powell
7. R. White
8. McCovey
9. B. Williams
10. Oliva
11, Brooksie
12. Gibson

I'm unlikely to vote by deadline today. Too much marking, too many conferences, during the last two weeks, so I haven't been able to finish assembling data.

fra paolo - when can you have a ballot in? I know we'll need an extension. I'm wondering to extend 2 days or a whole week.

1970 Ballot

I use a combination of WSAB and BPWAR. I also look at OPS+, ERA+, IP, and playing time. I give a catcher's bonus and a slight league strength adjustment.

1. Johnny Bench
2. Carl Yastrzemski
3. Willie McCovey
4. Bob Gibson
5. Sam McDowell
7. Jim Fregosi
8. Tommy Harper
9. Tony Perez
10. Boog Powell
11. Fergie Jenkins
12. Roy White

13. Tony Oliva
14. Harmon Killebrew
15. Tom Seaver
16. Gaylord Perry
17. Rico Carty
18. Billy Williams
19. Billy Grabarkewitz
20. Rusty Staub

Rick - you skipped #6. I'm going to move Tony Oliva up to the last slot on your ballot unless you correct me

DL - I probably could do it in two days if I push myself.

I'll extend until Monday 3/26 at 4:00 EDT.

So - how do we get 5 more ballots by Monday? Is everyone watching college basketball? It takes me about a half hour to do up my ballot.

I should be able to do one this weekend

Where should this new info on Negro League stats go? please transfer it to there

http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2012/03/negro-league-stats-1903-1948/

Thanks Howie. I plan on sponsoring a Negro League player page to commemorate this news. Most of them are available for $10. Anyone else want to join me? It would be great to sponsor all the HoM not HoF Negro Leaguers on behalf of the Hall of Merit.

Something like:

"Inducted to the Hall of Merit in the XXXX election." along with a link to the Hall of Merit main page.

I'll move this discussion to the Negro Leaguers thread.

If anyone wants to post a first-time ballot please post it today.

1970 Most Meritorious Player ballot

1. CARL YASTRZEMSKI – 161 G of 177 OPS+ for this acceptable 1B-LF combo defensive player in 1970.
2. JOHNNY BENCH - 148 RBI was 19 more than anyone else, but of course this was the Big Red Machine 1.0 (Tolan + Rose=232 R scored). Excellent all-around defensive catcher means that this 141 OPS+ nearly beats Yaz’s 177 for MMP 1st place overall. Started 130 G at C, 17 G in OF, including 2 in CF (!), and 5 at 1B.
3. WILLIE MCCOVEY – 181 OPS+ led majors, and a dazzling 137 BB also led the bigs. 9 fewer G than Yaz and a defensive liability, frankly, so he needs to dominate OPS+ to win a MMP.
4. TONY PEREZ – Lots of brutes piling up big OPS+ in 1970, but Perez rang up a 158 while playing a decent 3B at age 28 (seems to have gotten comfy at the position and wasn’t too old yet).
5. BOB GIBSON – Being overrated here for his pitching (7th in both ERA+ and IP), but yes he did hit .303 with a 99 OPS+ and 19 RBI.
6. JIM FREGOSI – A share of 2nd in WAR in 150 G at SS, at age 28 when he could still pick it (later became a 1B-3B mix who couldn’t hit enough to justify that).
7. TOMMY HARPER – Best known as an OF, but was a 3B-2B in this odd year, for the new Brewers. He was quite competent at 3B, so a 146 OPS+ is enough in a weakening ballot.
8. FRANK HOWARD – 3rd consecutive season of 170 or better OPS+. Was OF-1B in 1970, but a liability anywhere. Makes ballots when there’s room, like this year.
9. SAM MCDOWELL – Barely best combo of IP (305) and ERA+ (134) of remaining pitchers. And 304 K led field by 21 and no need for help from defense for those.
10. BILLY (not Bill) GRABARKEWITZ – One-hit wonder who never played in more than 87 MLB G in a season before or after 1970. A 3B-SS-2B who could field and with a 134 OPS+ is quite the valuable little player.
11. GAYLORD PERRY – IP champ at 329, with 23 CG and a 125 ERA+. 44 more IP than 10th-place IP-er in MLB means about 5 more “starts” by Perry than even another team’s bulldog. That adds up.
12. DICK DIETZ – 152 OPS+ while starting 137 G as a C? Yes please. Believed to be the only catcher to hit .300 with 100 BB and 100 RBI in the same season. Could have been a top 5 candidate if he wasn’t such a subpar defensive catcher. But he’s being discounted too much by some measures.

Close: Rico Carty (missed too many G), Jim Palmer (otherworldly help from D), Roy White (rag arm, don’t be fooled), Boog Powell and Harmon Killebrew (butchers in the field), Tony Oliva (BB-phobia), Billy Williams, Jim Hickman, Tom Seaver, Fergie Jenkins.

1970 MMP Ballot

This is my methodological post. The actual ballot will follow. This process took me nearly seven hours to do, BTW.

My consideration set:
Players = 139 OPS+ or better
NL
Willie McCovey, Rico Carty, Tony Perez, Jim Hickman, Dick Allen, Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Dick Dietz, Cito Gaston, Johnny Bench, Jim Wynn, Willie Mays, Rusty Staub.
AL
Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Howard, Boog Powell, Harmon Killebrew, Frank Robinson, Tommy Harper, Roy White.

Pitchers = 133 ERA+ or better
NL
Bob Gibson, Wayne Simpson, Tom Seaver, Milt Pappas
AL
Diego Segui, Sam McDowell, Jim Palmer

My method is decidedly my own, as I go back to first principles and construct my own 'Wins Above Average'.

For players, the basis of my system is wOBA. I calculate a league-specific set of linear weights, then use those to calculate each player's wOBA, as well as a set of positional averages for the league. The player's wOBA is compared to a positional average. Then an offensive winning percentage is calculated which via a Pythagorean formula is converted into wins.
For fielding, I have my own system of calculating Postional DERs, and only fielders who manage to achieve 2 wins above or below average have fielding effectiveness including in their final win total. (My theory is that fielding statistics are too imprecise to give a really useful ranking within a certain range either side of average, so for these purposes fielding is best ignored at the extremes.)
The effect of my system for players is to reward good performers at the rightward side of the defensive spectrum.

For pitchers, I have a system by which I split statistics between 'defense-independent innings' and 'pitching-independent innings' for the pitcher and the league. I then add the league average 'pitching-independent innings' to the pitcher's individual 'defense-independent innings' and convert this to a winning percentage, and then into wins above average. I do some adjusting to give more value to pitchers who pitch more innings, but these can vary from season to season.

After this, I do a little bit of adjusting by league and season. For 1970, the AL had a lower offensive environment, so good hitters in the AL and good pitchers in the NL get a bit of a boost.

On to the ballot, in my next post.

1) Tom Seaver.He led the (better-hitting) league in ERA and strikeouts, and pitched almost 300 innings.
2) Boog Powell. Powell had a good season with the bat, but his high ranking is a consequence of his excellent fielding. Either he or the Mike Epstein/Frank Howard pair for the Senators are the AL Gold Glove first basemen in my system.
3) Bob Gibson. He's ten years older than Seaver, and almost as good. Seaver's ERA advantage was crucial here.
4) Carl Yastrzemski. I have him as the best unadjusted hitter in either league, by quite a substantial margin. He's also the best hitter after positional comparisons, but before fielding is taken into account. So the gap between 2 and 4 is actually very narrow.
5) Johnny Bench. Two great hitting seasons for catchers, but Dietz' is a little bit better. However, Bench's impact on the running game was substantial enough that I think he overcomes Dietz' advantage with the bat.
6) Dick Dietz. Wow, that came out of nowhere!
7) Jim Palmer. Under my system, Palmer doesn't benefit quite as much from the great Orioles' defence.The Orioles' defenders work out at about twelve per cent better than league average,but twelve per cent of thirty per cent is actually about three percent of value.
8) Sam McDowell. McDowell actually has a better wOBA than Palmer, but slips behind once I start to factor in defence because of the four extra home runs and thirty more walks/HBPs he gave up. It's awfully close, though, and I might have swapped them on another day.
9) Tommy Harper.
10) Tony Perez. My system really likes infielders who can hit. Neither of these gets their place he with any influence from the glove either. As a group, AL third-sackers were a bit worse with the bat than their NL counterparts, so Harper gets a lift from that, as well as from being compared with AL second-basemen. (Harper gets 21 games at second, and they hit siginificantly worse than the third-basemen.) Meanwhile, to everyone's relief, Perez' defensive efforts of 1970 are nowhere near as good as they were in 1969. Phew!
11) Rico Carty. There's a big gap between Perez and the rest, which I could have filled with some pitchers (eg, Milt Pappas and Diego Segui) with relatively low innings totals. But that seems unfair to some excellent hitters I always hate filling out the bottom of the ballot, because making distinctions becomes increasingly difficult. Carty's wOBA is the highest for NL hitters.
12) Billy Williams. It's a shame someone has to lose between Jim Hickman and Billy Williams. I'm giving the nod to Williams, though, as an 'evener' for being rather harsh to him in the HoM.

fra paolo - Fregosi isn't in your consideration set and he's been on every ballot. Boog Powell and Frank Howard ranking as the best fielders at their position is a bizarre result.

Fregosi was a bad miss on my part, as a consequence of him 'only' having a 127 OPS+ and being a zero-rated fielder. He slots in somewhere between Yaz and Palmer.

So:

Seaver
Powell
Gibson
Yastrzemski
Bench
Fregosi
Dietz
Palmer
McDowell
Harper
Perez
Carty

And poor Billy Williams falls off the ballot. I still owe him an evener!

The thing about Howard's ranking is that, given the way my system works, he benefits from splitting time with Epstein, it looks like. That's why I made a point of specifying the Epsein/Howard pair, rather than Howard alone. Also, I'm not entirely convinced by this result. The Senators were second in the league in groundball outs, behind the White Sox, and the numbers might not be adjusting enough for opportunities in this case.

I've come round to the view that Powell might be a bit underrated at 1B. Where last year's scandal Perez fell to the standard that received opinion holds of him, Powell did all right in 1969, and seems to have bettered it in 1970. Michael Humphreys' numbers say this is one of his better seasons, so I'm not necessarily that far off.

I'm not sure why all ballots have to sustain the conventional wisdom. Maybe my fielding system misses a trick or two, but I can often see where it gives an off-beat result, and usually make a mental adjustment for that. When I don't, you'll see it here in black and white, with me ready to stand up for it.

1970 ballot (no post-season bonuses and a 1% demerit for all AL players)

1) Carl Yastremski - Best ML player, IMO.
2) Tommy Harper - Best ML third baseman.
3) Johnny Bench - Best NL player -close enough to have been #2 on this list.
4) Jim Fregosi - Best ML shortstop
5) Roy White - Best ML left fielder.
6) Willie McCovey - Best ML first baseman.
7) Bobby Bonds - Best ML right fielder.
8) Billy Williams - Best NL left fielder.
9) Bob Gibson - Best ML pitcher.
10) Tony Perez - Best NL third baseman.
11) Sam McDowell - Best AL pitcher.
12) Boog Powell - Best AL first baseman.

I never said all systems had to have the same result. Just pointing out when this one doesn't jive with conventional wisdom. I've updated to add Fregosi.

1 hour left. I'll only accept ballots from people who have voted in previous elections.

Before somebody nitpicks my ballot, Yastrzemski has a "z" in it and White was the best ML left fielder not nicknamed "Yaz."

Election is closed