1) Dwight Gooden - not really controversial
2) George Brett - playoffs help separate him from the pack
3) Pedro Guerrero - best bat, good defensive year
4) Rickey Henderson
5) Tim Raines
6) Bret Saberhagen - very good PWAA
7) John Tudor - more bulk but lesser rate stats than Saberhagen. Moved up due to postseason performance.
8) Gary Carter - more years on an MMP ballot than any other catcher
9) Willie McGee
10) Ozzie Smith - Smith fielded a lot of grounders from Tudor
11) Jesse Barfield - very good defensive season
12) Wade Boggs
13) Charlie Liebrandt

14-22) Dave Stieb, Rick Reuschel, Ryne Sandberg, Cal Ripken, Dale Murphy, Charlie Hough, Don Mattingly, Bert Blyleven, Orel Hershiser

1985 Ballot

1. Dwight Gooden, P, New York Mets: Just a monster season. A league-leading 276 innings to go along with an astronomical 229 ERA+.
2. George Brett, 3B, Kansas City Royals: A 179 OPS+ while still making a positive contribution at the hot corner (+1).
3. Rickey Henderson, CF, New York Yankees: I've usually had Henderson lower than consensus but his 157 OPS+ in '85 and a defensive bonus for playing center finally get him close to the top.
4. John Tudor, P, St. Louis Cardinals: A 185 ERA+ in 275 innings.
5. Wade Boggs, 3B, Boston Red Sox: Mattingly had the better defensive rep at the time but Boggs contributed +8 fielding runs at the tougher position. Oh yeah, he also had 143 runs created to go along with his 151 OPS+.
6. Pedro Guerrero, LF/3B, Los Angeles Dodgers: The best position player in the NL, leading the senior circuit with a 182 OPS+. He even contributed defensively (+4 runs and a partial bonus for spending a third of the season at third base).
7. Dave Stieb, P, Toronto Blue Jays: The best pitcher in the AL for the fourth year in a row.
8. Tim Raines, LF, Montreal Expos: Third in OPS+ with 151 and second in Runs Created with 124, plus contributions on the basepaths and in the field.
9. Gary Carter, C, New York Mets: Carter is an even better player than I remember. Another huge OPS+ from behind the plate (138) plus he gets the full catcher bonus as the Mets didn't flirt with playing him in the outfield.
10. Don Mattingly, 1B, New York Yankees: Third in OPS+ with 156 and fourth in Runs Created with 136 but a down year defensively with an even zero fielding runs.
11. Orel Hershiser, P, Los Angeles Dodgers: A 171 ERA+ in 239 innings.
12. Willie McGee, CF, St. Louis Cardinals: A 147 OPS+ and +5 fielding runs in center field.
13. Bert Blyleven, P, Cleveland/Minnesota: He may have been traded mid-season but he put together another stellar campaign with a 134 ERA+ in a league-leading 293 innings pitched.

14. Fernando Valenzuela, P, Los Angeles Dodgers
15. Eddie Murray, 1B, Baltimore Orioles
16. Ryne Sandberg, 2B, Chicago Cubs
17. Rich Gedman, C, Boston Red Sox
18. Dale Murphy, CF, Atlanta Braves
19. Jesse Barfield, RF, Toronto Blue Jays
20. Charlie Leibrandt, P, Kansas City Royals
21. Mike Scioscia, C, Los Angeles Dodgers
22. Mike Schmidt, 1B/3B, Philadelphia Phillies- kind of weird to not have him on the ballot after all these years
23. Dave Parker, RF, Cincinnati Reds
24. Bret Saberhagen, P, Kansas City Royals
25. Cal Ripken Jr, SS, Baltimore Orioles- edges Kirk Gibson out based on position

Final ballot same as I said in prelim

1)Gooden
2)Rickey
3)George Brett
4)Pedro Guerrero
5)John Tudor
6)Willie McGee
7)Tim Raines
8)Ryne Sandberg
9)Wade Boggs
10)Dave Stieb
11)Gary Carter
12)Mattingly
13)Bert Blyleven

Final Ballot:

1 Gooden, Dwight 9532
2 Henderson, Rickey 9201
3 Brett, George 8444
4 Guerrero, Pedro 7782
5 McGee, Willie 7766
6 Raines, Tim 7705
7 Boggs, Wade 7446
8 Carter, Gary 7171
9 Tudor, John 6751
10 Mattingly, Don 6607
11 Barfield, Jessie 6531
12 Saberhagen, Bret 6308
13 Murray, Eddie 6011

14 Blyleven, Bert 5880
15 Scioscia, Mike 5871
16 Stieb, Dave 5850
17 Sandberg, Ryne 5790
18 Murphy, Dale 5697
19 Leibrandt, Charlie 5552
20 Herr, Tommie 5542

Prelim ballot. No postseason bonus but instead a small bonus if the player's team was a Division winner or in a closely contested Division race. The 1985 season is the first season where I really paid attention to stats so I may be a little more tied to some of the traditional counting stats than in future MMP elections.

1. Gooden 24-4 1.53 268, those are the stats I remember and the WAR says he was even more dominant
2. Brett had an incredible year, he sure got intentionally walked a lot, amazing he put up the numbers he did in that line up
3. R Henderson one of the stats I was obsessed with from '85 is Mattingly's 145 RBI--at the time I didn't notice Rickey's 146 runs scored
4. Tudor 21-8 1.93 one of the best seasons for a non-CY winner 20-1 finish, did great against the Mets. Soon or later I will write an article about his wonderful season
5. Mattingly 35 145! .324 they're just RBI...I know I know
6. McGee
7. Boggs 240 hits .368 I withheld the desire to penalize him for being Wade Boggs
8. Murray
9. Saberhagen
10. Carter great first season as a Met
11. Herr 8HR but 110RBI, seasons with less than 10HR but more than 100 RBI are rare. I look at it this way, Herr who prior to '85 never had driven in more than 49 did a great job helping the team score
12. Raines
13. Hershiser 19-3 2.03 for NL West winner is hard not at least put in top 13

Honorable mention:
Barfield--I didn't include a Blue Jay but he was the closest for me
Hernandez--I wanted to but couldn't bring myself to give him a bonus for writing "If at First"
Dale Murphy
Ozzie Smith--sorry my love of Tommy Herr's 8 110 won out
Sandberg--not a terrible drop from '84
Schmidt--no MVP votes but a good season
Guerrero
Blyleven--wow that was a lot of innings
Darrell Evans---I wrestle with whether I think he belongs in the HOF or not
Not necessarily honorable mention but Dennis Lamp going 11-0 seemed really cool to me at the time

Final Ballot

1. Doc Gooden 12.33 WARR
2. Ricky Henderson 8.68 WARR
3. Wade Boggs 7.62 WARR
4. George Brett 7.45 WARR
5. John Tudor 7.63 WARR
6. Eddie Murray 7.13 WARR
7. Willie McGee 6.98 WARR
8. Pedro Guerrero 6.56 WARR
9. Tommy Herr 6.81 WARR
10. Dave Stieb 6.33 WARR
11. Gary Carter 6.29 WARR
12. Jesse Barfield 6.17 WARR
13. Bret Saberhagen 6.16 WARR

The rest of the top 20
Don Mattingly
Oil Can Boyd
Bert Blyleven
Rick Reuschel
Keith Hernandez
Charlie Leibrandt
Rich Gedman

Mine is a final not a prelim ballot, I copied my ballot from the discussion thread

Unchanged from my prelim.


1. Dwight Gooden.
2. Rickey Henderson.
3. George Brett.
4. John Tudor.
5. Willie McGee.
6. Tim Raines.
7. Pedro Guerrero.
8. Gary Carter.
9. Wade Boggs
10. Ozzie Smith.
11. Don Mattingly
12. Dave Stieb
13. Cal Ripken

1985 MMP ballot.

1. Dwight Gooden
2. Rickey Henderson
3. George Brett
4. John Tudor
5. Dave Stieb
6. Pedro Guerrero
7. Gary Carter
8. Tim Raines
9. Don Mattingly
10. Wade Boggs
11. Willie McGee
12. Orel Hershiser
13. Bert Blyleven
14-22. Charlie Liebrandt, Cal Ripken, Mike Scioscia, Eddie Murray,
Fernando Valenzuela, Bret Saberhagen, Jesse Barfield, Ozzie Smith, Tom Herr

Mr. C,

How does Raines do in WARR?

Here's my top hitters in the NL for 1985:

Pedro Guerrero OF 29 Los Angeles 54.41
Tim Raines OF 25 Montreal 44.20
Willie McGee OF 26 St. Louis 41.95
Mike Schmidt 1B 35 Philadelphia 33.46
Tom Herr 2B 29 St. Louis 32.02
Jack Clark 1B 29 St. Louis 31.50
Darryl Strawberry OF 23 New York 31.35
Dale Murphy OF 29 Atlanta 30.84
Mike Marshall OF 25 Los Angeles 25.70
Gary Carter C 31 New York 24.82
Mike Scioscia C 26 Los Angeles 24.12
Keith Hernandez 1B 31 New York 21.34
Vance Law 2B 28 Montreal 21.30
Bill Doran 2B 27 Houston 19.56
Carmelo Martinez OF 24 San Diego 18.39
Greg Brock 1B 28 Los Angeles 17.17
George Foster OF 36 New York 15.91
Ryne Sandberg 2B 25 Chicago 14.92
Andy Van Slyke OF 24 St. Louis 14.89
Graig Nettles 3B 40 San Diego 13.08
Gary Redus OF 28 Cincinnati 10.71
Jose Cruz OF 37 Houston 10.52
Dave Parker OF 34 Cincinnati 10.02

Here's my top pitchers in the NL in 1985:

Dwight Gooden 24-4 20 New York 32.10
John Tudor 21-8 31 St. Louis 29.79
Rick Reuschel 14-8 36 Pittsburgh 27.09
Dennis Eckersley 11-7 30 Chicago 25.80
Orel Hershiser 19-3 26 Los Angeles 24.69
Bryn Smith 18-5 29 Montreal 19.14
Scott Sanderson 5-6 28 Chicago 15.75
Fernando Valenzuela 17-10 24 Los Angeles 14.60
Cecilio Guante 4-6 25 Pittsburgh 12.29
Rich Gossage 5-3 33 San Diego 11.84
Mario Soto 12-15 28 Cincinnati 11.52
Rick Sutcliffe 8-8 29 Chicago 11.11
Sid Fernandez 9-9 22 New York 10.38
Don Carman 9-4 25 Philadelphia 10.24
Scott Garrelts 9-6 23 San Francisco 10.04

Here's my top hitters in the AL for 1985:

George Brett 3B 32 Kansas City 53.20
Rickey Henderson OF 26 New York 51.36
Don Mattingly 1B 24 New York 40.63
Wade Boggs 3B 27 Boston 35.93
Eddie Murray 1B 29 Baltimore 32.74
Phil Bradley OF 26 Seattle 27.43
Jesse Barfield OF 25 Toronto 25.82
Dwight Evans OF 33 Boston 23.72
Alvin Davis 1B 24 Seattle 22.70
Kirk Gibson OF 28 Detroit 21.10
Mike Davis OF 26 Oakland 18.53
Darrell Evans 1B 38 Detroit 17.88
Reggie Jackson OF 39 California 17.49
Brian Downing OF 34 California 15.62
Mike Young OF 25 Baltimore 15.58
Gorman Thomas DH 34 Seattle 15.32
Cal Ripken SS 24 Baltimore 15.03
Jim Rice OF 32 Boston 14.75
Bruce Bochte 1B 34 Oakland 14.53
Ron Hassey C 32 New York 13.68
Don Baylor DH 36 New York 13.36
Dave Winfield OF 33 New York 13.21
Carlton Fisk C 37 Chicago 13.18

Here's my top pitchers in the AL in 1985:

Charlie Hough 14-16 37 Texas 31.06
Bret Saberhagen 20-6 21 Kansas City 25.60
Dan Petry 15-13 26 Detroit 24.78
Bert Blyleven 17-16 34 Clev/Minn 23.67
Dave Stieb 14-13 27 Toronto 23.54
Jack Morris 16-11 30 Detroit 22.33
Walt Terrell 15-10 27 Detroit 20.17
Greg Harris 5-4 29 Texas 19.92
Teddy Higuera 15-8 27 Milwaukee 18.70
Charlie Leibrandt 17-9 28 Kansas City 17.56
Bob James 8-7 26 Chicago 16.78
Willie Hernandez 8-10 30 Detroit 16.34
Oil Can Boyd 15-13 25 Boston 14.85
Jimmy Key 14-6 24 Toronto 14.45
Ron Guidry 22-6 34 New York 13.91
Steve Ontiveros 1-3 24 Oakland 13.43
Brian Fisher 4-4 23 New York 13.29
Danny Jackson 14-12 23 Kansas City 12.83
Tonm Seaver 16-11 40 Chicago 12.23
Dave Schmidt 7-6 28 Texas 12.06

Fianl ballot; part 2

I feel foolish as this is starting to become a bad habit. I accidently copied the wrong list in my hurry to get my ballot completed. Please use this as my final ballot.

1. Doc Gooden 12.62 WARR
2. Ricky Henderson 8.44 WARR
3. Wade Boggs 7.79 WARR
4. John Tudor 7.60 WARR
5. George Brett 7.52 WARR
6. Eddie Murray 6.96 WARR
7. Willie McGee 6.82 WARR
8. Tommy Herr 6.64 WARR
9. Pedro Guerrero 6.56 WARR
10. Bret Saberhagen 6.32 WARR
11. Gary Carter 6.14 WARR
12. Jesse Barfield 6.31 WARR
13. Dave Stieb 5.99 WARR

The rest of the top 20
Don Mattingly
Ryne Sandberg
Orel Hershiser
Rick Reuschel
Charlie Liebrandt
Rich Gedman
Fernando Valenzuela

Eric

Raines was #30 in WARR.

Eric

Further to my above comment. My method uses value added runs (situational hitting taken into account. in 1985, Raines hit much better with bases empty than with runners in scoring position so he will rate lower in my method than in some of the others.

MMP Official Ballot (no postseason bonuses)

The greatest array of MMP-talent that we have seen so far for this project.

1) Rickey Henderson: Best ML player and center fielder.

2) Dwight Gooden: Best ML pitcher
As a Met fan, I wish I could have placed him at the top, but I can't. In a context-based universe, this may be the greatest season all-time for a pitcher. Having said that, starting pitchers have gradually pitched less innings throughout the years. Therefore, when we're discussing the player who had the greatest impact on a team for a particular season, the best starting pitchers have lost ground year after year. When we're discussing HoMers, different story. In that respect, contemporary starters can easily compete with the Radbourns and Spaldings. I doubt I'm going to change any minds, but at least you know where I'm coming from now.

3) Willie McGee: Best NL center fielder.

4) Pedro Guerrero: Best ML left fielder.

5) George Brett: Best ML third baseman.

6) Tim Raines

7) Gary Carter: Best ML catcher.

8) Wade Boggs: Best AL third baseman.

9) Don Mattingly: Best ML first baseman.

10) Dale Murphy: Best ML surname once again.

11) John Tudor

12) Tommy Herr: Best ML second baseman.

13) Eddie Murray

caiman: you do know that this is the ballot thread, right? Your four posts cannot be read as a ballot, not without some more work from you to integrate the top names from them into one list.

See comment #54 of the discussion thread for explanations.

1. Dwight Gooden
2. George Brett
3. Rickey Henderson
4. John Tudor
5. Pedro Guerrero
6. Tom Herr
7. Jesse Barfield
8. Bret Saberhagen
9. Willie McGee
10. Gary Carter
11. Ozzie Smith
12. Cal Ripken
13. Ryne Sandberg

This is Brock Hanke's ballot, since tomorrow is the deadline. I'll post comments tomorrow, but I've just gotten over two conventions and two cases of the flu, and I'm lucky to have gotten this ballot done at all. I do want to say, up front, that ranking Dwight Gooden this year was one of the toughest things I've ever done in this project. It's pretty clear that this is the best pitching season of the 1980s, but I just cannot buy WAR's 13.2 ranking. First, I think WAR overrates pitchers, or at least the top ones, and that 13.2 would, I think, mean that Gooden turned in the best season, pitcher or player, of this entire project so far. I just cannot buy that. Aside from that, you guys are all used to my standard method of averaging the Win Shares and WAR ordinals and tweaking from there. There are some postseason credits here, because some of the best season-long players did have good postseasons as well.

1. George Brett (postseason)
2. Rickey Henderson
3. Dwight Gooden
4. Willie McGee
5. Pedro Guerrero
6. Tim Raines
7. Wade Boggs
8. Gary Carter
9. John Tudor (some small postseason broke the tie with...)
10. Don Mattingly
11. Jesse Barfield
12. Bret Saberhagen
13. Tommy Herr (a good postseason, but Saberhagen was almost a must-do because of his high WAR ranking)

14-20 would look something like:
14. Ryne Sandberg
15. Dave Stieb
16. Ozzzie Smith (postseason, see game 6 of the NLCS)
17. Eddie Murray
18. Dale Murphy
19. Charlie Liebrandt
20. Bert Blyleven

in 1985, Raines hit much better with bases empty than with runners in scoring position

Interesting. Thanks for responding.

Anyone need an extension? We're 5 ballots short of 1984

My final ballot. I'll leave the comments on the discussion thread. I used a home-tweaked version of Win Shares, with Extrapolated Runs as the offensive base and a mix of FIP and RA-based pitching metrics. I also give full postseason credit, treating a postseason game as equal to a regular season game. This year that helps Brett.

1. Dwight Gooden
2. Willie McGee
3. Rickey Henderson
4. George Brett
5. Tom Herr
6. Gary Carter
7. Ryne Sandberg
8. Dave Parker
9. Dale Murphy
10. John Tudor
11. Ozzie Smith
12. Pedro Guerrero
13. Jesse Barfield

Voted last year, didn't this year

John DiFool2
fra paulo
Voxter

Prelim from Johnny Fora but no ballot. Anyone know his e-mail to ping him?

I the office late today

1 Dwight Gooden
2 Rickey Henderson
3 Wade Boggs
4 George Brett
5 John Tudor
6 Willie McGee
7 Pedro Guerrero
8 Tim Raines
9 Bret Saberhagen
10 Dave Stieb
11 Charlie Leibrandt
12 Don Mattingly
13 Rick Reuschel

Nobody has asked for an extension so balloting is closed.