2016 ballot

1) Mike Trout - about 20 runs better on offense than anyone
2) Mookie Betts - outstanding glove, great baserunning
3) Kris Bryant - better fielder than I thought. Postseason bump
4) Josh Donaldson - postseason bump
5) Jose Altuve - solid bat
6) Corey Kluber - with postseason credit he rates as the best pitcher
7) Robinson Cano
8) Corey Seager
9) Francisco Lindor - postseason bump
10) Manny Machado
11) Justin Verlander
12) Max Scherzer - top NL pitcher
13) Kyle Seager
14) Clayton Kershaw - postseason adds bulk but not peak
15) Brian Dozier

16-20) Adrian Beltre, Carlos Correa, John Lester, Nolan Arenado, Ian Kinsler
21-25) Noah Syndergaard, Buster Posey, Jean Segura, Adam Eaton, Johnny Cueto

2016 Ballot

1. Mike Trout, CF, Los Angeles Angels: ho hum, just another incredible season from the modern Willie Mays
2. Jose Altuve, 2B, Houston Astros: I actually had Altuve ahead of Trout midway through the season but a second half swoon drops Jose all the way to second place
3. Kris Bryant, 3B/OF, Chicago Cubs: third in NL OPS+ but added solid defense and defensive flexibility
4. Kyle Hendricks, P, Chicago Cubs: Led the majors in ERA+ by a full 24 points; more IP might have pushed him past his teammate for tops in the NL
5. Josh Donaldson, 3B, Toronto Blue Jays: top five in AL in OPS+ and RC
6. Mookie Betts, RF, Boston Red Sox: only a 131 OPS+ but makes up a lot of ground with his glove (+32) and his feet (+9)
7. Freddie Freeman, 1B, Atlanta Braves: 157 OPS+ was 2nd in NL and +9 fielding was Gold Glove worthy
8. Daniel Murphy, 2B, Washington Nationals: 4th in NL OPS+ with 157 but -11 fielding drops him back a bit
9. Robinson Cano, 2B, Seattle Mariners: +11 fielding for the old guy to go with 138 OPS+
10. Madison Bumgarner, P, San Francisco Giants: 226 IP with a top 4 ERA+ of 149
11. Jon Lester, P, Chicago Cubs: better ERA+ than Bumgarner (164) but also fewer IP (202)
12. Corey Seager, SS, Los Angeles Dodgers: one of the all-time great rookie seasons
13. Nolan Arenado, 3B, Colorado Rockies: +20 fielding to go with top ten OPS+
14. David Ortiz, DH, Boston Red Sox: the best pure bat in the AL; 2nd to Trout with a 162 OPS+
15. Max Scherzer, P, Washington Nationals: not much daylight between Bumgarner, Lester and Scherzer

16. Corey Kluber, P, Cleveland Indians: best pitcher in the AL
17. Rick Porcello, P, Boston Red Sox: I was wrong about Porcello
18. Brian Dozier, 2B, Minnesota Twins
19. Joey Votto, 1B, Cincinnati Reds: gave back a lot of value on defense
20. Tanner Roark, P, Washington Nationals
21. Justin Verlander, P, Detroit Tigers
22. Kyle Seager, 3B, Seattle Mariners: is this the best brother combo since Joe & Dom DiMaggio?
23. Anthony Rizzo, 1B, Chicago Cubs
24. Manny Machado, 3B, Baltimore Orioles
25. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Detroit Tigers

1. Mike Trout - no contest
2. Kris Bryant - post-season bonus, easily the best NL player
3. Josh Donaldson - looked like he was giving Trout a run for the top slot until he faded down the stretch
4. Jose Altuve - see above
5. Mookie Betts - among the game's elite in every aspect of the game
6. Freddie Freeman - huge offensive season (50% above league average)
7. Corey Seager - best rookie SS season ever
8. Manny Machado - bat and glove combo still puts him in upper echelon of players
9. Robinson Cano - another HOF-caliber year
10. Brian Dozier - most bombs from 2B since Davey Johnson in 1973, and 2nd most ever
11. Daniel Murphy - phenomenal bat at premium position, dragged down a bit by glove
12. Justin Verlander - 11K/9 and 1.96 ERA in second half; 2nd in MLB in Ks with 254
13. Corey Kluber - still just below Verlander IMHO even with post-season bonus
14. Adrian Beltre - great glove, solid bat (130 wRC+)
15. Francisco Lindor - post-season bonus; excellent glove

deleted

Here it is, for what it's worth. I found a source for Win Shares this year, and printed out the top fifty. There was not ONE SINGLE PITCHER in the whole Win Shares top 50! This made collating against WAR a bit hard. I, personally, might well agree with Win Shares on that, but I forced one pitcher from each league onto the bottom of the list. There were other fun disconnects. Win Shares has Jose Altuve as the #2 player in baseball this year, behind only Mike Trout. WAR has him 33rd. Joey Votto was 5th and 29th. Danny Murphy was 6th and 37th, and would have been #14 on my ballot if I hadn't forced two pitchers on there. - Brock Hanke

1. Mike Trout
2. Kris Bryant
3. Robinson Cano
4. Josh Donaldson
5. Kyle Seager
6. Manny Machado
7. Mookie Betts
8. Ian Kinsler
9. Adam Eaton
10. Joey Votto
11. Jose Altuve
12. Miguel Cabrera
13. Nolan Arenado
14. Max Scherzer
15. Justin Verlander

Here's my ballot, same as my prelim.

1 TROUT, MIKE 10000
2 BRYANT, KRIS 8536
3 CANO, ROBINSON 7801
4 BETTS, MOOKIE 7797
5 ALTUVE, JOSE 7665
6 DONALDSON, JOSH 7664
7 SEAGER, KYLE 7145
8 MACHADO, MANNY 7140
9 FREEMAN, FREDDIE 6840
10 SEAGER, COREY 6816
11 KINSLER, IAN 6580
12 VOTTO, JOEY 6560
13 BELTRE, ADRIAN 6458
14 MURPHY, DANIEL 6423
15 SCHERZER, MAX 6351

16 EATON, ADAM 6348
17 CABRERA, MIGUEL 6300
18 RIZZO, ANTHONY 6261
19 DOZIER, BRIAN 6255
20 VERLANDER, JUSTIN 6222
21 KERSHAW, CLAYTON 6096
22 SYNDEGAARD, NOAH 6086
23 ARENADO, NOLAN 5926
24 BUMGARNER, MADISON 5876
25 KLUBER, COREY 5845

2016 Final Ballot

1. Mike Trout 9.5 WARR
2. Mookie Betts 8.06
3. Nolan Arenado 7.27 WARR
4. Josh Donaldson 6.59 WARR
5 Manny Machado 6.36 WARR
6. Justin Verlander 6.31 WARR
7. Kris Bryant 6.27 WARR
8. Max Scherzer 6.15 WARR
9. Adrian Beltre 6.14 WARR
10. Clayton Kershaw 6.07 WARR
11. Kyle Seager 5.99 WARR
12. Robinson Cano 5.96 WARR
13. David Ortiz 5.94 WARR
14. Noah Syndergaard 5.71 WARR
15. Freddie Freeman 5.68 WARR

Rest of the top 20
Anthony Rizzo
Jose Altuve
Carlos Martinez
Corey Kluber
Jon Lester

My system: I use number of inputs to come up with my own WAR number (mWAR - for my WAR, Michael WAR, Mengel -my true last name WAR, modified WAR, or any combination thereof. For offense, I use B-R WAR. For defense, I use an average of TZ/DRS, DRA and FRAA. For pitching, I average B-R, BG, and FG WAR. Other modifications: I don't penalize pitchers for below average offense (a manager would still throw Lefty Grove out to the mound every fourth or fifth day even though he hit like well, Lefty Grove did), but above average hitting pitchers certainly do receive credit. I believe the DH penalty is too harsh, so I halve the difference between them and 1b. I also factor in a regressed form of Max Marchi's/BP's catcher game calling runs. The resulting WAR number inmultiply by a standard deviation factor (thanks to Dr. Chaleeko for those). That final mWAR number I plug into a DanR-style peak rate salary estimator.

2016 MMP ballot:

1. Mike Trout, cf, LAA, ($36,417,076)
2. Mookie Betts, rf, Bos ($27,843,318)
3. Kris Bryant, 3b, ChC ($24,580,237) - NL MMP
4. Kyle Seager, 3b, Sea ($22839,437)
5. Josh Donaldson, 3b, Tor ($21,586,672)
6. Robinson Cano, 2b, Sea ($21,563,224)
7. Jose Altuve, 2b, Hou ($21,330,847)
8. Nolan Arenado, 3b, Col ($20,724,338)
9. Adam Eaton, rf, CWS ($20,557,572)
10. Manny Machado, 3b, Bal ($18,581,284)
11. Carlos Correa, ss, Hou ($17,867,895)
12. Buster Posey, c, SF ($17,861,346)
13. Clayton Kershaw, sp, LAD ($17,612,925) - MMPitcher
14. Brian Dozier, 2b, Min ($17,612,925)
15. Jean Segura, 2b, Ari ($17,389,224)

16-25. Noah Syndergaard, Justin Verlander (AL MMPitcher), Corey Seager (MMRookie), Freddie Freeman, Corey Kluber, Ian Kinsler, Anthony Rizzo, Max Scherzer, David Ortiz, Miguel Cabrera.

Michael - You're likely putting much more energy into your system than I am in mine, but you did write something that I question. It's about bad-hitting pitchers. I agree that the A's would throw Lefty Grove out there despite his hitting, and so would I. But they would - maybe once a year, maybe once every three years - lose a game because Lefty Grove struck out with two on and two out. I don't even know whether even Lefty would cost his team a win as frequently as every three years, but sooner or later, it's a lost game. So, I would deduct his hitting from his pitching value (and factor in fielding value, for that matter). It's not a matter of not running Lefty out there; it's a matter of his going 23-8 instead of 24-7. - Brock Hanke

Reminder - ballot closes Wednesday

7 ballots is pretty low. I'd like to get more by tomorrow.

Guys, I think I'm going to sit out this one. Lack of Win Shares is throwing me my system off. My apologies.

throwing me my system

throwing my system, that is

You can get Win Shares at Baseball Gauge

Brock-

I apologize for the long-overdue response. Last week I was swamped between a death in the family and preparing for/celebrating my son's 4th birthday.

I guess similar to how you don't agree with the premise that replacement-level defense is the same as average defense, I don't think the same is true of pitcher hitting (which is how the WAR systems treat it). I basically expect zero offense from pitchers, so I would put replacement level basically at zero. Since I'm not entirely sure how/ not enough time to figure out how, I just compensate by setting all the below average pitcher hitting at zero and give credit for all the above average hitting pitchers. It's not a perfect system, but in my ever-evolving system (I've tweaked it every year I've voted in the HoM), it has seemed to work so far. But that doesn't men I'm not willing to change my mind/won't change that part of my system in the future.

You can get Win Shares at Baseball Gauge

In that case, I'll try to get something up on time. Thanks Dan!

Retrosheet just released the play-by-play data today. Does anyone want an extension based on that data?

Official 2016 MMP Ballot (no postseason bonuses):

1) Mike Trout: Best ML player and center fielder - no one close.
2) Kris Bryant: Best NL player and ML third baseman.
3) Jose Altruve: Best ML second baseman.
4) Robinson Cano: Best AL second baseman.
5) Josh Donaldson: Best AL third baseman.
6) Daniel Murphy: Best player with yours truly's surname.
7) Joey Votto: Best ML first baseman.
8) Brian Dozier:
9) Ian Kinsler:
10) Corey Seager: Best ML shortstop.
11) Mookie Betts: Best ML right fielder.
12) Kyle Seager:
13) Freddie Freeman: Best player named after a famous Golden Age superhero.
14) Jon Lester: Best ML pitcher.
15) Justin Verlander: Best AL pitcher.

8 ballots isn't a lot but it is one more than 2015. Balloting is closed.