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1974 Ballot

1. Mike Schmidt, 3B, Philadelphia Phillies
2. Joe Morgan, 2B, Cincinnati Reds
3. Johnny Bench, C, Cincinnati Reds- catcher bonus pushes Bench up to 3rd
4. Phil Niekro, P, Atlanta Braves
5. Gaylord Perry, P, Cleveland Indians- top AL pitcher
6. Rod Carew, 2B, Minnesota Twins- top AL position player
7. Mike Marshall, RP, Los Angeles Dodgers- an incredible 208 innings in relief
8. Catfish Hunter, P, Oakland A's
9. Fergie Jenkins, P, Texas Rangers
10. Luis Tiant, P, Boston Red Sox
11. Nolan Ryan, P, California Angels
12. Willie Stargell, 1B, Pittsburgh Pirates

13. Reggie Jackson, RF, Oakland A's- essentially tied with Stargell for 12th, Pops is ahead based on league strength
14. Bert Blyleven, P, Minnesota Twins
15. Bobby Grich, 2B, Baltimore Orioles
16. Jon Matlack, P, New York Mets
17. Andy Messersmith, P, Los Angeles Dodgers
18. Buzz Capra, P, Atlanta Braves
19. Jimmy Wynn, CF, Houston Astros
20. Bill Freehan, C/1B, Detroit Tigers- half a catcher bonus lands Freehan in the top 20

1974 ballot

1) Joe Morgan
2) Mike Schmidt - Morgan and Schmidt are a cut above the rest this year
3) Johnny Bench - C bonus
4) Gaylord Perry - might be unfair but his "zero" with the bat is above Niekro's negative contribution
5) Phil Niekro
6) Rod Carew
7) Bobby Grich - good year for 2B
8) Jimmy Wynn - small postseason bonus moves him up
9) John Matlack - first non-HoM guy on the ballot
10) Darrell Evans - another good year with the glove
11) Luis Tiant - 2nd best AL starting pitcher
12) Catfish Hunter - narrowly edges out Reggie

13-15) Reggie Jackson, Dave Concepcion, Jim Barr
16-21) Reggie Smith, Ferguson Jenkins, Bert Campaneris, Andy Messersmith, Bert Blyleven, Willie Stargell

1974 ballot

1) Joe Morgan
2) Gaylord Perry
3) Mike Schmidt -- ok perhaps I have to defend myself at this point. by raw WAR, Schmidt wins, but he has less offensive WAR than Morgan and less offensive WAR than Perry has pitching WAR, and as far as I'm concerned, defensive WAR what is it good for? Yes he was fabulous defensively but not so much to overcome a better offensive 2B who was no defensive slouch himself, or a stud of a pitcher who pitched 322 innings at a league-leading ERA+. I trusted it enough to put him above...
4) Phil Niekro
5) Johnny Bench
6) Rod Carew
7) Bert Blyleven -- The 70s are fun. Lots of stud pitchers with lots of IP. These next three are impossible to differentiate in any meaningful way
8) Luis Tiant
9) Fergie Jenkins
10) Bobby Grich
11) Jim Kaat
12) Jimmy Wynn

1974 ballot

WAR framework with reduced replacement (WARR)

1. Mike Schmidt 9.00 WARR His fielding numbers tipped the balance in his favour
2. Joe Morgan 7.70 WARR
3. Luis Tiant 7.60 WARR Several pitchers have very similar numbers. Tiant pitched in a hitters park so IMHO deserves to be rated above the others.
4. Jon Matlack 7.45 WARR
5. Gaylord Perry 7.25 WARR
6. Bert Blyleven 7.20 WARR
7. Johnny Bench 6.85
8. Jim Kaat 6.85
9. Phil Niekro 6.80 WARR
10. Ferguson Jenkins 6.65 WARR
11. Rod Carew 6.40 WARR
12. Jimmy Wynn 6.30 WARR

The rest of the top 20
Jim Barr
Darrell Evans
Bobby Grich
Reggie Jackson
Steve Busby
Wilbur Wood
Dave Concepcion
Richie Zisk

My method: I combine various uber-stats into my "uber-stat blender" and come up with rankings.
There are no playoff bonuses. There is a 10% catcher bonus.
Stats used: Win Shares (from baseballgauge), WSAB (from baseballgauge), bgWAR (downloadable now from baseballgauge), brWAR, fgWAR (this year with piching numbers. I presume hitting is not included so I manually added that into the numbers listed at the sight under pitching WAR), and drWARP1. Again, I've had no luck trying to access bpWARP1 so it's not included.

Here's double my ballot:

1 schmidt, mike 9933
2 morgan, joe 9279
3 bench, johnny 8828
4 niekro, phil 7830
5 wynn, jimmy 7800
6 perry, gaylord 7702
7 grich, bobby 7567
8 tiant, luis 7466
9 carew, rod 7364
10 jenkins, ferguson 7176
11 matlack, jon 7089
12 blyleven, bert 7030
13 jackson, reggie 6966
14 evans, darrell 6904
15 stargell, willie 6368
16 messersmith, andy 6356
17 hunter, catfish 6354
18 smith, reggie 5918
19 kaat, kim 5909
20 barr, jim 5883
21 rooker, jim 5868
22 rose, pete 5857
23 concepcion, dave 5833
24 cedeno, cesar 5798

I've got the top 3 a step up on the rest. Still a number of years before I started following baseball.

This is Brock Hanke's ballot for 1974. Unlike previous years, I'm not going to provide individual comments, because the situation doesn't really call for that. Instead, this here paragraph explains what I did. I started where I usually do, sorting the discussion thread header by Win Shares and then by WAR, to get an idea of who ranks about where according to the systems. This worked badly, because, this year, the systems just plain don't agree very much. WAR's #3 and #8, Matlack and Blyleven. don't even make Win Shares' top twenty. Win Shares' #6, #8, and #10, Burroughs, Reggie! and Stargell, don't make WAR's top twenty. So what I did was to take the guys who did make both system's top twenty, rank them by what consensus I could figure out, and then threw in Mike Marshall.

I threw Marshall in, even though he doesn't make either system's top twenty, for the reason I gave in the discussion thread: He's worth about 3-4 roster spots in 1974, because of all the IP he put up. He's the closer, the setup man, the backup closer you go to when the closer needs rest, and the backup setup man, although the last two aren't really full roster spots. Still, he's worth about 3 spots. He finished 85 games, which almost has to include every save situation the team had, and averaged about two IP for every game, finished or not. In short, in 1974, he was the Pud Galvin of closers.

The main people I moved ahead of consensus were Schmidt (well, he stayed #1), Bench and Wynn. Those three guys did dominate their positions. Yes, I know that this implies saying that Bobby Grich and Rod Carew make Joe Morgan rank lower, but I do take dominance into account.

So, here's the list, without further comment.

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Johnny Bench
3. Jimmy Wynn
4. Joe Morgan
5. Gaylord Perry
6. Bobby Grich
7. Phil Niekro
8. Mike Marshall
9. Rod Carew
10. Luis Tiant
11. Ferguson Jenkins
12. Catfish Hunter

The top 3 are very very very close this year, and I don't mean Joe Morgan. I mean Bench, Schmidt and Jimmy Wynn, who was #1 on my prelim. Oddly enough, WS and WAR both agree on the order Schmidt, Bench and Wynn. OPS+ is Schmidt, Wynn and Bench. Wynn's team won a pennant which is not an insignificant point with guys this closely bunched. But in the end I am swayed by the fact that Wynn would clearly be #3 in defensive value.

1. Johnny Bench, Cincinnati, c (was #3 on prelim)
2. Mike Schmidt, Philadelphia, 3b (#2)
3. Jim Wynn, Los Angeles, cf (#1)

4. Joe Morgan, Cincinnati, 2b (#6). WS and WAR both have him #2 behind Schmidt, and his OPS+ of 160 beats 'em all. And, surely, his defensive value cannot be seen as a negative. Bottom line, these other 3 guys were just too good. Morgan was great but these other 3 guys were better.

5. Catfish Hunter, Oakland, sp (unrated on prelim). Did not appear in my prelim. There's reasons why others don't rate him that high though 25 wins are not to be scoffed at. But I remember in 1974 that the Texas Rangers (1 of whose starting 8 was a friend of mine at the time) insisted that Fergie Jenkins was their best player, their MVP, better than official AL MVP Jeff Burroughs. But clearly Catfish was better than Fergie. So Fergie > Burroughs, and Catfish > Fergie, ergo Catfish is the AL MVP. And I'm not willing to go below #5 with the AL MVP.

6. Reggie Jackson, Oakland, rf (#4)
7. Willie Stargell, Pittsburgh, lf (#8). ML leader in OPS+.
8. Jeff Burroughs, Texas, lf (#5)
9. Steve Garvey, Los Angeles, 1b (#7)
10. Phil Niekro, Atlanta, sp (unrated). ML #2 in ERA+ at 159 in 362 IP vs. a teammate who was #1 in 217 IP.

11. Bobby Grich, Baltimore, 2b (#12 tie in prelim)
12. Rod Carew, Minnesota, 2b (unrated)

Dropped off final ballot after appearing on the prelim: Joe Rudi (#9), Sal Bando (#11) cancelled each other out, Darrell Evans (#10), Mike Marshall (#12 tie). Replaced by Catfish, Niekro, Grich and Carew.

Close: Gaylord Perry, a poor man's Phil Niekro; and Fergie Jenkins, a poor man's Catfish Hunter.

19. Jimmy Wynn, CF, Houston Astros

Chris - since you have the lowest ranking for Wynn and you don't have him listed for the correct team I just wanted to doublecheck that you did look at his 1974 numbers and not a different year.

Thanks for the catch, DL. You're right. I was using some of his '73 numbers in terms of playing time and positional credit (he played RF in '73 before moving back to CF in '74 for the Dodgers). The corrected credit puts Wynn ahead of Ryan and Stargell.

Please adjust the bottom of my ballot accordingly:

10. Luis Tiant, P, Boston Red Sox
11. Jimmy Wynn, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
12. Nolan Ryan, P, California Angels

13. Willie Stargell, 1B, Pittsburgh Pirates

I remember in 1974 that the Texas Rangers (1 of whose starting 8 was a friend of mine at the time) insisted that Fergie Jenkins was their best player, their MVP, better than official AL MVP Jeff Burroughs.

Apparently that didn't sway your ballot though.

Apparently that didn't sway your ballot though.

Well, it certainly did re. Catfish. But good eye, D. I will also revise the bottom of my ballot.

8. Phil Niekro
9. Fergie Jenkins
10. Jeff Burroughs
11. Steve Garvey
12 (tie). Bobby Grich and Rod Carew

Sorry about that.

I haven't dealt with a tie ballot before and my spreadsheet doesn't like it either. If you could break the tie I'd appreciate it.

Copied directly from the discussion thread. The numbers here are pWins - pLosses, pWOPA, pWORL, which are kind of explained here. pWins tie to team wins, eWins are context-neutral.

1. Joe Morgan, 23.1 - 15.7, 4.0, 5.8 - he was also #1 on my ballot in 1973
2. Mike Schmidt, 23.8 - 17.0, 3.1, 4.9 - clearly a top-2 player in context-neutral stats.
3. Fergie Jenkins, 23.0 - 14.8, 4.4, 6.1 - he's #1 in pWOPA and pWORL; I drop him to #3 because Morgan and Schmidt are better in eWOPA and eWORL, the NL was probably a bit stronger than the AL, and my system seems to like Jenkins a bit more than other systems. See my next comment for a bit more on this last issue.
4. Johnny Bench, 22.1 - 15.5, 3.5, 5.2 - you could probably make a case for him for any of the top 3 slots if you give any kind of extra catcher bonus.
5. Bobby Grich, 22.9 - 17.7, 3.2, 5.0 - my system thinks this was probably the best season of Grich's career.
6. Jimmy Wynn, 24.9 - 17.7, 2.9, 4.8 - best OF in MLB by any of the measures I looked at; led the majors in raw pWins.
7. Gaylord Perry, 18.1 - 15.5, 1.6, 3.1 - top 5 or 6 in context-neutral stats (19.4 - 14.4, 2.8, 4.3); he looks much worse in pWOPA/pWORL.
8. Rod Carew, 21.3 - 18.1, 2.2, 4.0 - ranks 4th in eWORL; like Perry, does a lot worse in pWOPA/pWORL.
9. Luis Tiant, 20.5 - 13.5, 3.7, 5.3 - ranks 3rd in pWOPA/pWORL, off-ballot (i.e., not in top 12) in eWOPA/eWORL.
10. Andy Messersmith, 19.6 - 15.8, 2.7, 4.3 - pretty well-balanced in pWins and eWins (ranks 9th - 11th in both WOPA and both WORL measures).
11. Davey Concepcion, 22.1 - 18.3, 2.6, 4.5 - top 10 in pWOPA/pWORL, not even top 20 in eWOPA/eWORL; he gets a ballot slot here by virtue of him being the best SS in MLB (even context-neutral).
12. Catfish Hunter, 19.5 - 14.6, 2.7, 4.3 - excellent World Series performance clinches a ballot slot for him over several pitchers with similar resumes.

Sorry for the lateness; same method as previous years:
1 Mike Schmidt 9.32
2 Johnny Bench 8.21 Statistically had him a little behind Morgan, but thought his 708 AB, many at catcher, was more valuable than #s would lead to believe
3 Joe Morgan 8.44
4 Jon Matlack 8.00
5 Jimmy Wynn 7.57
6 Gaylord Perry 7.05
7 Rod Carew 7.05
8 Darrell Evans 6.88
9 Bobby Grich 6.79
10 Bert Blyleven 6.70
11 Phil Niekro 6.56
12 Mike Marshall 2.86 Going totally by gut here; 208 inning of top notch relief; completely unique season

13,14 Luis Tuant, Fergie Jenkins

1. Joe Morgan
2. Mike Schmidt
3. Phil Niekro
4. Gaylord Perry
5. Reggie Jackson
6. Luis Tiant
7. Johnny Bench
8. Ferguson Jenkins
9. Jimmy Wynn
10. Rod Carew
11. Bobby Grich
12. Andy Messersmith

Others: Willie Stargell, Jim Barr, Tom Murphy

Hi Dan,

I can't log into BBTF, so could you post my ballot for me? Here it is:

1974 Ballot (no postseason credit)

1) Joe Morgan: Best ML player

2) Mike Schmidt:: Best ML third baseman - not that far off from Little Joe.

3) Johnny Bench: Best ML catcher.

4) Jim Wynn: Best ML center fielder.

5) Reggie Jackson: Best ML right fielder.

6) Rod Carew: Best ML second baseman.

7) Phil Niekro: Best ML pitcher.

8) Gaylord Perry: Best AL pitcher.

9) Luis Tiant: Not that much difference between Niekro and Perry.

10):Willie Stargell: Best ML left fielder.

11) Jeff Burroughs: Best AL left fielder.

12) Bobby Grich: Best Baltimore second baseman. ;-)

Thanks, Dan!

John

"Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness."

- Captain Nathan Brittles

No ballots yet from

Rob Wood
Yardape
fra paulo
voxter

It's a close election and I'm open to an extension if someone asks.

Sorry for my late ballot. I take a look at the uberstats and try to adjust for where I see weaknesses or flaws. Last year I was very pitcher-heavy, this year I have barely any. Not sure why that is, exactly, but that's the way it worked out.

1. Johnny Bench I must have a bigger catcher "bonus" than others. By extrapolated runs, Bench is fairly close to Morgan and Schmidt (the consensus top two, I think). While Morgan and Schmidt are both fine defenders, I don't think it's unreasonable to think a good defensive catcher like Bench makes it up in defensive value. Indeed, the top three probably rank in order of my estimates of their defensive value.
2. Joe Morgan
3. Mike Schmidt
4. Jimmy Wynn I only addressed the top three in my Bench comment, but with postseason credit the Toy Cannon is nearly equal to Schmidt.
5. Darrell Evans A nearly identical season to 1973 (value-wise, at least).
6. Bill Russell Important position player for the pennant winners.
7. Bobby Grich
8. Davey Concepcion
9. Jon Matlack MLB's best pitcher, but a step down from last year's crop.
10. Cesar Cedeno
11. Ferguson Jenkins Best Canadian pitcher.
12. Ted Simmons Catcher bonus shows up again.

I'm just drafting my ballot now, if you want to wait for me. It's awfully close, and I've got some sharp differences of opinion between my methods and the more widely accepted measures like horrid BB-ref WAR that are proving hard to resolve in the supporting statements.

Thanks for posting my ballot, Dan! Finally was able to log in.

Based on the initial ballot I'm going with Grich over Carew on sunnyday's ballot unless he disagrees. The instructions say to list 12. I wanted to have Reggie and Catfish tied but I broke it.

My 1974 MMP ballot:

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Joe Morgan
3. Johnny Bench
4. Rod Carew
5. Jimmy Wynn
6. Reggie Jackson
7. Gaylord Perry
8. Phil Niekro
9. Bobby Grich
10. Willie Stargell
11. Fergie Jenkins
12. Luis Tiant

(reposting from the discussion thread, since I got no response there....)


Hi all, long time no chat. Please excuse my interruption of 1974 with a question. You guys have debated WS and WAR, etc, and myabe this Q was answered a while ago, but if so it has slipped my mind.

Has anyone solved the problem of similar batters getting more WS in an NL (no DH) game than the AL? It was shown a while back that guys with the same stats would have fewer WS when the offense is divided among 9 'real' hitters vice 8+the pitcher. Has there been a way to account for that?

Has anyone solved the problem of similar batters getting more WS in an NL (no DH) game than the AL? It was shown a while back that guys with the same stats would have fewer WS when the offense is divided among 9 'real' hitters vice 8+the pitcher. Has there been a way to account for that?

Do you have any idea what the difference is percentage-wise, Tom?

I've been doing quick 'n' dirty ballots for the last two, as a consequence of deciding to re-work rather drastically my pitching system, but also to tweak my fielding system to give me greater confidence in how balls-in-play are distributed from the team level to the level of individual positions.

The bigger problem I confront is getting some kind of equivalence between my pitching ratings and my player ratings. The two start from slightly different premises, and were I to follow slavishly the results, my ballots would be top-heavy with pitchers. At the moment, I use a simple little conversion formula to strip out fielding and batting support.

My system starts with WPA/LI, in that I take the top 20 players in the Majors, and then ensure that the top player by WPA/LI for each position is also included. Using this list, I then compare players to the league average at their position, using wOBA with season-specific co-efficients and converted to runs. I then run my fielding numbers, which are treated more as a guide than a direct addition. For pitchers, I use a different method that allocates runs and outs to Defense-Independent and Pitching-Independent categories, and then adds the pitcher's defense-independent value to a league average pitching-independent value.

In the AL, offense was a bit lower than in 1973 or 1975, so I've docked the AL pitchers' value a little bit for that, but also slightly boosted the values of AL hitters. In the NL, 1974 looks much like 1973 and 1975, so I've used the values my system generates pretty much as they are.

The biggest problem my system revealed was the fact that Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Mike Schmidt and Johnny Bench are basically in a tie for merit. But how it got there was problematic. Schmidt has the least hitting value (because offensive levels for NL 3Bs are much higher than 2Bs or Cs), and Morgan the most. However, my fielding system sees Carew as better than Morgan by enough that Carew should be ahead, but this does not fit the picture that other systems show. Michael Humphreys has it the other way round by a good margin. Win Shares Above Bench has it a bit closer, but still with Morgan ahead. However, both of those other systems see Schmidt's and Bench's fielding value as at the least more valuable than Carew and Morgan added together. My system doesn't attempt catcher fielding yet. So I've opted to rank them thusly:

1) Johnny Bench
2) Mike Schmidt - I let Bench's hitting value outweight Schmidt's fielding advantage in Humphrey's and WSAB.
3) Rod Carew
4) Joe Morgan — I gave Carew the nod over Morgan because Carew completed more games at 2B, which either reflects a weaker bench or more confidence in his glove.
5) Phil Niekro - The best pitcher in baseball*. This season is also the first of what probably is his career peak.
6) Catfish Hunter — My pitching system throws up two different numbers one could use to assign merit. Hunter is tops in the AL for 'wins above average', but in terms of actual winning percentage he is behind Bert Blylevyn. Hunter's advantage in innings pitched helps him in the 'wins above average' category, and this advantaging of playing time means I usually prefer that. Very occasionally I will use the winning percentage instead.
7) Toby Harrah — I'm not sure that I've adjusted enough for ballpark here, but I've got Harrah as, strictly, the second-best hitter against his positional average in the American League (behind Carew). Plus, he was good enough with the glove not to hurt his batting value.
8) Mike Marshall — *Actually he's the best pitcher in baseball by my system, with the highest score I've seen since I started using this for the MMP project. I think it's a quirk, so I've put him down here.
9) Bert Blylevyn — Minnesota was a better hitter's park than Texas. I never would have suspected.
10) Ferguson Jenkins
11) Andy Messersmith - I could have swapped these two. Messersmith pitched in a slightly tougher league, but Jenkins pitched in a tougher park. It's pretty much even-stevens. #
12) Jim Wynn — Well, it could have been one of two Reggies, but today I've favoured Wynn.

Perhaps I ought to make it clear that Bench's superior hitting value over Schmidt is as rated under my system, as compared to the positional average for the league.

Schmidt wOBA .397 vs NL 3Bs wOBA .319
Bench wOBA .371 vs NL Cs wOBA .298

Willie Stargell has the highest wOBA of anyone in either league of those I looked at, at .402.

voxter hasn't asked for an extension so the election is closed

John - again, it seems I USED to know this at one time, but now it's merely a guess, that NL batters get about 5% more WS.

Just saw your request for a tie-breaker. Let's just go alpha. 12 Carew, 13. Grich.

John - again, it seems I USED to know this at one time, but now it's merely a guess, that NL batters get about 5% more WS.

Interesting, Tom. Thanks.

Just saw your request for a tie-breaker. Let's just go alpha. 12 Carew, 13. Grich.

You're a trouble-maker, you are. Do I really have to fix the table in the results thread?