1981 Ballot

1) Mike Schmidt - Top 3 players are pretty clearly separated from the rest
2) Dwight Evans - Every position player on ballot was at least +1 win with the glove, Evans was +1.6
3) Andre Dawson - no postseason bonus because he stunk in the playoffs
4) Bobby Grich
5) Rickey Henderson - small postseason bonus
6) Robin Yount - small postseason bonus, 2 fielding wins above average
7) Rick Burleson - great year from a decent player. Top non-HoM performance in 1981
8) Fernando Valenzuela - Bonus from 40 innings in postseason, total of 331IP, best pitcher in 1981
9) Steve McCatty - Best AL pitcher, don't recall McCatty-Mania.
10) Dave Concepcion - No postseason for Reds despite top record
11) Bert Blyleven
12) Nolan Ryan - Good postseason bumps him ahead of Carlton and Buddy Bell
13) George Foster - good fielding season

14-21) Buddy Bell, Steve Carlton, Keith Hernandez, Dave Steib, Alan Trammell, Bill Madlock, Eddie Murray, Dave Righetti

DL - Just so you know, I will vote, although it will take me to the weekend. Still trying to think of a way to get the music thing to work, because I really LOVED those discussions. You never get Rick and Roll discussed by the individual year. Savoy et al really know their stuff, and most of them are not lyrics specialists like me, so I get a feeling that I am contributing to the enterprise, too. - Brock Hanke

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Rickey Henderson
3. Dwight Evans
4. Tom Seaver
5. Fernado Valenzuela
6. Steve McCatty
7. Andre Dawson
8. George Foster
9. Bobby Grich
10. Rollie Fingers
11. Jack Morris
12. Eddie Murray
13. Cecil Cooper

moved to discussion thread

I can't edit my first post here, but I want to change my ballot to this:

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Rickey Henderson
3. Dwight Evans
4. Nolan Ryan
5. Fernado Valenzuela
6. Bobby Grich
7. Steve McCatty
8. Andre Dawson
9. Tom Seaver
10. George Foster
11. Rollie Fingers
12. Eddie Murray
13. Cecil Cooper

Why Cooper and not Yount?

Why Cooper and not Yount?

Why Blyleven and not Seaver?

Seaver versus Blyleven is all defensive adjustment

Cooper beats Yount easily offensively and I don't put full stock in defensive metrics.

Savoy, that's a cool song list. Could you repost it to the discussion thread? It would be nice to keep this thread open to actual ballots.

I don't think it's defensive metrics but acknowledging that SS is harder to play than 1B. Yount doesn't rank as high for me if he's just average at SS but he's still ahead of Cooper.

Savoy, that's a cool song list. Could you repost it to the discussion thread? It would be nice to keep this thread open to actual ballots.

Okay. Someone had said that we don't allow music in until the ballot thread is there.

Close. We don't want music in the discussion thread until the ballot thread is open, at which point the baseball conversation has a place to go as the musical conversation ramps up. But the music posts should go in the discussion, not the ballot thread. Sorry for any confusion.

DL - edited

Same as my prelim ballot:
1 Schmidt, Mike 10000
2 Henderson, Rickey 8389
3 Evans, Dwight 8296
4 Dawson, Andre 8169
5 Grich, Bobby 6822
6 Bell, Buddy 6451
7 Valenzuela, Fernando 6253
8 Carlton, Steve 6033
9 Foster, George 6013
10 Yount, Robin 5958
11 Cooper, Cecil 5753
12 Hernandez, Keith 5657
13 Murphy, Dwayne 5593

14 Blyleven, Bert 5522
15 Ryan, Nolan 5470
16 Murray, Eddie 5363
17 Burleson, Rick 5293
18 McCatty, Steve 5198
19 Fingers, Rollie 5175
20 Concepcion, Dave 5159

Ballot 1981

Wins above replacement level: Since preliminary ballot have included DRA in fielding numbers and corrected a calculation mistake I made with the AL pitchers.

1. Mike Schmidt 7.82 WARR
2. Buddy Bell 6.66 WARR
3. Dwight Evans 6.13 WARR
4. Ricky Henderson 5.77 WARR
5. Andre Dawson 5.66 WARR
6. Robin Yount 5.24 WARR
7. Fernado Valenzuela 5.14 WARR
8. George Foster 5.09 WARR
9. Bobby Grich 4.91 WARR
10. Dwayne Murphy 4.78 WARR
11. Steve Carlton 4.63 WARR
12. Bert Blyleven 4.51 WARR
13. Tony Armas WARR

Rest of top 20

14. Tim Raines
15. Dave Stieb
16. Tom Seaver
17. Eddie Murray
18. Willie Wilson
19. Dave Concepcion
20. Ken Oberkfell

1981 Ballot

1. Mike Schmidt, 3B, Philadelphia Phillies: 198 OPS+ and 102 runs created both lead majors; add in +9 fielding runs and you have one of the most dominant seasons we've ever seen
2. Dwight Evans, RF, Boston Red Sox: 2nd in the AL in OPS+, 1st in RC, with +14 fielding runs in front of the Green Monster
3. Andre Dawson, CF, Montreal Expos: 157 OPS+ and +18 fielding runs in center
4. Bobby Grich, 2B, California Angels: 1st in AL in OPS+ but not the great fielding year we've seen from Grich in the past
5. Nolan Ryan, P, Houston Astros: leads the NL in ERA+ with 195
6. Rickey Henderson, LF, Oakland Athletics: a 151 OPS+ with +22 fielding runs
7. Steve Carlton, P, Philadelphia Phillies: a 151 ERA+ in 190 innings
8. Rollie Fingers, RP, Milwaukee Brewers: an unearthly 333 ERA+ (1.04 ERA)
9. Steve McCatty, P, Oakland Athletics: the best starting pitcher in the AL and the only one in the top five in both IP and ERA+
10. Tom Paciorek, 1B, Seattle Mariners: a career best 151 OPS+
11. Buddy Bell, 3B, Texas Rangers: love the +27 fielding runs to go with a 134 OPS+
12. Fernando Valenzuela, P, Los Angeles Dodgers: 192 innings with a 135 ERA+; no extra bonus for causing "mania"
13. George Foster, LF, Cincinnati Reds: a 150 OPS+ in a Big Red Machine swansong

1. Mike Schmidt PHI
2. Andre Dawson MON
3. Dwight Evans BOS
4. Bobby Grich CAL
5. Rickey Hendreson OAK
6. Fernando Valenzuela LAD
7. Steve Carlton PHI
8. Nolan Ryan HOU
9. Buddy Bell TEX
10.George Foster CIN
11.Eddie Murray BAL
12.Tony Armas OAK
13.Dwayne Murphy OAK

Big drop off after #8 IMO

+14 fielding runs in front of the Green Monster

I thought Evans was RF and Rice LF

RoyalsRetro - since there is no prelim and you didn't vote recently can I get you to explain your ballot process a little bit?

I thought Evans was RF and Rice LF

- You're right, I even have Evans listed as RF in the same line- change that to +14 fielding runs in front of Pesky's Pole

This is Brock Hanke's ballot. This was horrible. There were schedule length adjustments, postseason adjustments, and after the first few guys, Win Shares and WAR did not agree hardly at all. Worse, my method of averaging WAR and WS produced 4 people tied for the 11th spot (Murray, Burleson, Fernando and Carlton, with Keith Hernandez one whole point behind that Gang of Four), with two "must do"s yet to be placed. (A "must do" is a case like George Foster and Bert Blyleven this year. George ranked 5th in Win Shares, but did not make WAR's top 25. Bert was 6th in WAR but not in Win Shares top 25. When I get those guys, I think that they need to be included, even if it's at the bottom of the ballot, just because one system saw huge value there.) So, I'm duckin' and coverin', but here they are:

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Rickey Henderson
3. Dwight Evans
4. Andre Dawson
5. Bobby Grich
6. Buddy Bell (hell of a year for 3B)
7. Robin Yount
8. Dwayne Murphy
9. Steve McCatty
10. Cecil Cooper
11. Steve Carlton
12. Bert Blyleven
13. George Foster

Brock - where's Fernando?

It's in his paragraph. Fernando was tied for 11th with Carlton and a couple of others who didn't make the ballot (Murray, Burleson) but got bumped from the ballot in favor of Foster and Blyleven.

DL - Yeah, Chris has it about right. What I do is get your list from the discussion thread, for which I cannot thank you enough, copy it into a Word table, and then sort it by WAR and then sort it by Win Shares. When I've got those sorted sheets done, I number the first 25 in each system, and then look up where they rank in the other system's list, adding the two together. So, Schmidt ranked first by both systems, thereby ranking first. 1+1 = 2, where lower is better and 2 is the best you can get. Henderson, Evans and Dawson were tied for second place, all with totals of 6. Rickey was 2nd in Win Shares and 4th in WAR, Dawson was the other way around, and Evans was 3 in both systems. Those all add up to 6, at which point adjustments come into play. Sometimes, someone who ranks high (at least top ten) in one list (Blyleven, Foster) won't even make the other system's top 25. Those are the "must do" guys. If one system thinks that much of them, I think I ought to include them, even if the other system doesn't. Then, after Adventures in Adjustments, I have a list. This time, the adjustments were so many that they tended to cancel each other out, leaving the ordinals pretty much unchanged. As it happened, four guys' ranks added up to 32 - Carlton, Fernando, Murray, and Burleson, which meant that they were all tied for 11th place. In that case, I have to make a choice. I decided that, of those four, I'd go with Steve. Part of that is that he was almost a "must do." He ranks 7th in WAR, but exactly 25th in Win Shares. That is, if he had been just a wee bit WORSE, I'd have felt compelled to include him as a must do. So he was the one out of those four that I chose. Does that make sense? - Brock

RoyalsRetro - since there is no prelim and you didn't vote recently can I get you to explain your ballot process a little bit?

Oh, I thought this was just for anyone to vote. Sorry! Just ignore my ballot.

Anyone can vote, even if you do not normally participate in Hall of Merit discussions. If have never participated in an MMP election, just post a preliminary ballot in the discussion thread by 01 May 2013.

I'd actually like to accept the ballot but would like to know a little bit about how you put it together. Do you like Win Shares or WAR? Do you add playoff credit or a catcher bonus?

Makes sense but you should know the lists aren't comprehensive. I don't think I'd miss a top 5 guy but there are guys who get votes who don't make the discussion thread.

DL - Thanks for the answer. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. I was aware that you weren't making completely inclusive lists, so the first five years of voting, I checked to see if there was anyone I'd vote for who wasn't on your list. I didn't find even one in five years. Since then, I've trusted your lists as starting points. There doubtless are players who don't make your lists who get votes, but since I'm trying to balance out two systems, the risk is much less for me than for someone who has one particular method he uses. I'm, by methodology, a "moderate" voter. Also, one of the fun parts of this project for me is comparing the two lists. I've made many comments about WAR ranking pitchers higher than Win Shares. That's not just from casual observation. It's from having to look at who ranks where on which list every ballot. So, I guess what I'm saying is whatever you do, don't stop putting up those lists. They're good for a lot more than you might think. - Brock

This is why I like prelim ballots that go to 20 or so. It helps people like Brock see if they missed someone. I'm pretty sure I didn't have Paciorek on the discussion thread.

DL - I hadn't thought about it, but you're right. I do check other prelims, and even early ballots, to make sure someone didn't skip through your lists, although, since I trust your lists, it's pretty much a perfunctory scan. It also occurs to me that I might be more help if I included the next few guys after #13 on my own ballot. Thanks for the insight. - Brock

My 1981 MMP ballot:

1. Mike Schmidt -- super year, led NL in all sabermetric categories
2. Dwight Evans -- his highest WAR in career, despite shortened season
3. Bobby Grich -- woefully underrated this season and in career
4. Andre Dawson -- would have been one slot higher if better postseason
5. Rickey Henderson -- great defensive outfielder early in his career
6. Fernando Valenzuela -- led NL in shutouts (8), complete games, and win value
7. Buddy Bell -- very solid season (great defense)
8. Steve Carlton -- very good season (avg 8 inning per start)
9. Robin Yount -- best AL shortstop
10. Nolan Ryan -- led NL with 195 ERA+ but team only 13-8 in his starts
11. Steve McCatty - pitched a ton under billy martin, led AL in win value
12. Keith Hernandez -- typical mex year
13. Rollie Fingers -- 1.04 ERA yields rollie the final slot

1981 ballot. See discussion thread for more details. I went
back to my prelim, and prorated my ratings according to the number
of team games played in 1981, but nobody's rating changed enough
to change their ranking.

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Dwight Evans
3. Rickey Henderson
4. Bobby Grich
5. Robin Yount
6. Andre Dawson
7. Steve McCatty
8. Cecil Cooper
9. Eddie Murray
10. Dave Concepcion
11. Nolan Ryan
12. George Foster
13. Steve Carlton

EricC - I don't see Fernando on your 20 name prelim either. What kept him off your list?

I took a look at the sorted lists I'd made, and found something odd about Fernando. He is almost a "must do" like Foster and Blyleven. WAR has him ranked 9th, while Win Shares has him at 23. That's just short of Carlton's list splits; I think I'd have to put Mania in my #14 slot if I had one. I would imagine that WAR based analyzers like Valenzuela a lot, while Win Shares supporters don't see the love. However, there could be differences between the WAR systems. Ilieam, I think, is the guy who uses the "uber-blender (his term)", which means that he makes up a spreadsheet of every system's list for the year that he can find. Since most of these component systems are different variants of WAR, he's mostly averaging WAR systems, with a little input from Win Shares and maybe one or two others. If he took a look at his blender sheet, he might be able to tell you whether the various WAR systems are all as high on Freddie as BB-Ref WAR. Since there is a lot of question about Valenzuela this year, that would be a good place to look. His own ballot has Mania 7th, which is consistent with the idea that almost all WAR systems like Freddie. - Brock

My ballot is the same as my prelim.

1. Mike Schmidt A fairly easy call this year, even with the crazy season
2. Fernando Valenzula Best ML pitcher
3. Andre Dawson
4. Dwight Evans AL MMP
5. Rickey Henderson
6. Gary Carter
7. Dwayne Murphy
8. Steve Carlton
9. Bobby Grich
10. George Foster
11. Nolan Ryan
12. Rick Burleson
13. Davey Concepcion

Dave Righetti is my best AL pitcher, edging McCatty, but neither makes the ballot.

Official MMP Ballot (no postseason credit)

1) Mike Schmidt: Best ML and third baseman by a mile.
2) Andre Dawson: Best ML center fielder.
3) Rickey Henderson: Best AL player and left fielder.
4) Dwight Evans: Best ML right fielder.
5) Bobby Grich: Best ML second baseman.
6) Cecil Cooper: Best ML first baseman.
7) George Foster: Best NL left fielder - can't wait for him to wear a Mets uniform in '82! :-(
8) Buddy Bell: Best AL third baseman.
9) Robin Yount: Best ML shortstop.
10) Fernando Valenzuala: Best ML pitcher - Fernandomania!
11) Tim Raines
12) Nolan Ryan
13) Rick Burleson

On a personal note, this was the year I really became a super fan instead of just a fan. First time I read the Sporting News guides and the Baseball Encyclopedia - my first Bill James Abstract is not that far off in the future. I really started catching up on baseball history at this time, too. By '82, there wasn't that many baseball records or personalities I didn't know something about.

Funny that the strike year not only made me more baseball crazy, but sports crazy in general.

I don't see Fernando on your 20 name prelim either. What kept him off your list?

I didn't overlook him, and have nothing against him. He's just off my top 20, in part
because I don't consider playoff value (it's not mandatory to do so, is it?), and in part because I
favor ERA more than RA. For what it's worth, the three pitchers on my
ballot include the top 3 pitchers on BBRef's 1981 MLB adjusted pitching wins leaders.

By other measures, Valenzuela loks better, and I could be underrating him, but it's not obvious
that he belongs on my ballot.

Thanks for the explanation

@bjhanke- Yup, that's me who throws together a few systems into the "uber-blender".
1- as you mentioned, 9th in brWAR
2- he's in a 3 way tie for 5th in bgWAR
3- he's in a 2 way tie for 7th in fgWAR
4- he's quite a ways down in Win Shares and WSAB (not surprising, considering how those systems are much less favorable to pitchers as the various WAR systems are. He's 3rd pitcher in Win Shares and 4th pitcher in WSAB).
5- I don't have pitching numbers for drWARP1 (I had tried at one point to help update his system... but my ignorance combined with my getting full time employment kept me from really making any progress. Sorry Dan!)
6- I used to use bpWARP (I forget which version) but a number of "years" ago my link stopped working (and I don't have a membership)

Iieiam - Thanks for the info. I filed that term "uber-blender" because I used to try to do it, but collecting the data was too much work. Also, since I know you're into the music stuff that now going on in the Discussion thread, I'm gonna risk DL's wrath and tease you that tomorrow I'm going to explain what the band name "Pere Ubu" means. They got mentioned a year or so ago, and they are in that 1981 movie I saw, Urgh! A Music War. But their band name is a truly great in joke for those who know what it means. - Brock

Still would like to count the RoyalsRetro ballot but in fairness to everyone else I need some explanation (1 sentence?).

See comments #51, #53, and #58, of the discussion thread for my explanations.

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Dwight Evans
3. Fernando Valenzuela
4. Robin Yount
5. Dwayne Murphy
6. Andre Dawson
7. Dave Concepcion
8. Rickey Henderson
9. Gary Carter
10. Bobby Grich
11. Burt Hooton
12. Steve McCatty
13. Rollie Fingers

Anyone need an extension?

Balloting is closed

Results?

Schmidt wins, obviously. The rest should be posted soon.