BBTF's Hall of Merit Discussion :: Most Meritorious Player: 2019 Ballot

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Friday, November 22, 2019

Most Meritorious Player: 2019 Ballot

Here are the specific rules for this election:

Candidate Eligibility: Any North American professional baseball player is eligible for the Most Meritorious Player (MMP) award including players on independent teams. Voters should consider the player’s on-field contribution to Major League Baseball (MLB) team(s) in that season only. If part of the season was spent outside MLB, that value may be considered as well. However, the player’s on-field contribution should be judged in relation to the highest level major league, not relative to a minor league. A season may include playoff or World Series games but does not include spring training or exhibition games. No credit will be given for games not played due to injury, wartime service or contract holdouts.

Ballot Length: For 2019, each voter should rank 15 players.

Voter eligibility: All voters who did not vote in the previous year’s election must post a preliminary ballot in the ballot discussion thread at least 2 days before voting ends. All voters must fill out a complete ballot. Voters must briefly explain their ballot choices. One person, one vote; anyone determined to have voted with multiple accounts will be banned and their votes will be disallowed. The MMP ballot committee has authority to exclude any ballot that does not meet these requirements.

Scoring: Points will be given in descending order with the highest-ranked player receiving 15 points, the second highest 14 points, and so on until the last player on the ballot receives 1 point. The player with the highest point total will be named the Most Meritorious Player. In case of a tie, the tiebreaker will be number of 1st place votes. If the first tiebreaker does not determine a winner the players will share the title of Most Meritorious Player.

Balloting will close at 4pm EST on 4 December 2019.

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 3 December 2019.

DL from MN Posted: November 22, 2019 at 05:10 PM | 14 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
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1. DL from MN Posted: November 22, 2019 at 05:12 PM (#5903294)

2 weekends open for voting

2. bjhanke Posted: November 23, 2019 at 04:14 PM (#5903471)

This has nothing to do with the 2019 MMP, but it's the only place I know to ask this question and get an answer soon. I participate in the yearly HoM elections. Every year, I have the same problem. I need a list of who is ALREADY IN the HoM, and I can't find any way to locate that info. It's probably easy, once you know how to do it, and I'll copy the instructions down into my computer, so I can just read them gain next year. But could someone, PLEASE, tell me how to navigate BTF to get to the current roster of the Hall off Merit. I have NO CLUE even where to start. THANKS in advance! - Brock Hanke

3. The Run Fairy Posted: November 23, 2019 at 05:57 PM (#5903485)

Here's the HoM plaque room, which has a list of all 267 members, sorted by position. There's also links to HoM players sorted by last name, if that's more helpful.

4. DL from MN Posted: November 25, 2019 at 02:44 PM (#5903799)

2019 MMP Ballot

I have 3 names bunched at the top and they're not coming out in the order I expected but I am going to just go with it.

1) Marcus Semien - helped by his Fangraphs fielding numbers
2) Alex Bregman - postseason doesn't add much
3) Mike Trout - best hitter
4) Cody Bellinger - Fangraphs doesn't love his glove as much as BBRef
5) Justin Verlander - best pitcher after small postseason credit
6) Mike Minor - best regular season pitcher by a small margin
7) Jacob deGrom - basically tied with Lynn
8) Lance Lynn
9) Gerrit Cole - big postseason bonus
10) Ketel Marte - didn't really follow him all year so this was a surprise for me
11) Anthony Rendon - postseason bonus helps him move up
12) Stephen Strasburg - got to see him pitch live in person this year, large postseason bonus
13) Christian Yelich
14) Trevor Story
15) Matt Chapman

16-20) Max Scherzer, Mookie Betts, George Springer, Jack Flaherty, Xander Bogaerts
21-25) DJ LeMahieu, Eduardo Rodriguez, Zack Greinke, Mike Soroka, Josh Donaldson
26-31) Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, JT Realmuto, Jorge Polanco, Lucas Giolito, Patrick Corbin

5. bjhanke Posted: November 26, 2019 at 04:08 AM (#5903945)

Hoo boy. This is Brock Hanke’s ballot for the 2019 MMP. As you know, I start by taking the players on DL’s headers, sort them by Win Shares to get WS ordinals, and then sort them by WAR, getting WAR ordinals. Then, I add the ordinals together and sort by that. This gives me my ballot; all I have to is check to see if anyone had a monstrous postseason or something.

This year’s ordinals list is insane. It starts out with almost perfect consensus: Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Mike Trout and Marcus Semien are ranked 1,2,3,4 in WAR and 2,1,3,4 in WS. I broke the 1-2 tie in favor of Bellinger because the gap between him and Bregman in WAR is higher than the gap in Win Shares. There’s also a good run in the 5-7 slots. Christian Yellich, Ketel Marte and Mookie Betts rank 5, 9,11 in Win Shares, and 9,10,11 in WAR. That’s very good consensus, and the players rank 5, 6 and 7, Yelich, Marte and Betts, on the ballot.

Everything else is hell. WAR’s Jacob de Grom is 5th; Win Shares has him so low – 39th – that he doesn’t even get on the ballot. Mike Minor and Lance Lynn rank 7 and 8 in WAR, but 40 and 41 in Win Shares; neither of them makes the ballot. Ronald Acuna rans 10th in WS, but 30th in WAR, and actually makes the ballot, in the 14th slot. But Ozzie Albies ranks 7th in WS, but 41st in WAR. He does not make the ballot. The weirdest gap is Gleyber Torres. He ranks 15th in Win Shares, which would just barely make the ballot, but 59th (!) in WAR. The gap between the WS and WAR ordinals is actually 44 points. That’s just insane, and it happens to all sorts of players.

Anyway, I’ve said my piece, so here’s the final list:

1. Cody Bellinger
2. Alex Bregman
3. Mike Trout
4. Marcus Semien
5. Christian Yelich
6. Ketel Marte
7. Mookie Betts
8. Anthony Rendon
9. DJ LeMahieu
10. Josh Donaldson
11. Matt Chapman
12. Justin Verlander
13. George Springer
14. Ronald Acuna
15. Jorge Polanco

6. bjhanke Posted: November 26, 2019 at 04:22 AM (#5903946)

Also, THANKS! to The Run Fairy. The Plaque Room link took me to a page I'd been to before, but it turned out to be the right page. The link starts the page with the most recent post, and then continues to list them by date. But there is a Search feature, which I had overlooked (it's in very small type), and I tried entering 2019 in there and got what I needed, except that it does not yet contain the latest three entries - the guys we elected last year - (easy to find). So, THANKS!!! Just FYI, in case you're curious, I need that list because I'm trying a new approach. I'm going to use the New Historical, which is 20 years old, but still has the best ranking system devised so far, and ranks the top 100 players at each position. What I'm going to do is, by position, go down the list until I find the highest ranking player who is NOT yet in the Hall of Merit. And the second-highest. If neither of these are from the 19th century, I'm going to include the highest ranking 19th century player, too. This helps me a lot, because I don't have to flail about looking at individual players, never being sure whether I've overlooked someone. I have high hopes for the approach. My emotions will not be involved. I won't overlook someone because I have so many players to consider. There are players who, because they were still playing, or had their whole careers after 2000, need a ranking adjustment (or to get ranked to all), but I can handle that reasonably easily. I should have thought of this years and years ago. So, THANKS AGAIN! - Brock Hanke

7. Qufini Posted: November 26, 2019 at 02:22 PM (#5904055)

2019 Ballot

1. Alex Bregman, 3B, Houston Astros
2. Cody Bellinger, RF, Los Angeles Dodgers
3. Mike Trout, CF, Los Angeles Angels: one of the closest finishes, Bregman needs every bit of his games played advantage plus defensive credit for filling in at short to surpass Trout's big lead in OPS+ while Bellinger's amazing defense pushes him into second
4. Christian Yelich, RF, Milwaukee Brewers: not bad for a follow-up campaign
5. Justin Verlander, P, Houston Astros
6. Gerrit Cole, O, Houston Astros: even closer than Bregman/Trout with Verlander's small IP advantage outweighing Cole's ERA+ lead
7. Marcus Semien, SS, Oakland Athletics
8. Anthony Rendon, 3B, Washington Nationals
9. Ketel Marte, CF/2B, Arizona Diamondbacks: was not expecting this kind of year from Marte
10. Trevor Story, SS, Colorado Rockies: 118 OPS+ and +17 fielding
11. Xander Bogaerts, SS, Boston Red Sox: -21 fielding drops him below Semien and Story
12. Jacob deGrom, P, New York Mets: 3rd in NL ERA+, 2nd in IP
13. Hyun-Jin Ryu, P, Los Angeles Dodgers: led the NL in ERA+ with 179
14. Nolan Arenado, 3B, Colorado Rockies
15. Mookie Betts, RF, Boston Red Sox

16. DJ LeMahieu, 2B/3B, New York Yankees
17. Nelson Cruz, DH, Minnesota Twins
18. Jorge Polanco, SS, Minnesota Twins
19. George Springer, CF/RF, Houston Astros
20. Josh Donaldson, 3B, Atlanta Braves

8. Qufini Posted: November 26, 2019 at 02:23 PM (#5904056)

Should be an interesting election. 3 ballots in and 3 different #1s so far (and none of them named Mike Trout!).

9. lieiam Posted: November 28, 2019 at 11:38 AM (#5904341)

No changes from my prelim ballot previously posted.

1 BREGMAN, ALEX 9746
2 BELLINGER, CODY 9706
3 TROUT, MIKE 9504
4 YELICH, CHRISTIAN 9072
5 SEMIEN, MARCUS 8906
6 RENDON, ANTHONY 7794
7 VERLANDER, JUSTIN 7750
8 BETTS, MOOKIE 7514
9 COLE, GERRIT 7499
10 MARTE, KETEL 7438
11 DEGROM, JACOB 7410
12 LEMAHIEU, DJ 7187
13 SPRINGER, GEORGE 7006
14 ALONSO, PETE 6969
15 CHAPMAN, MATT 6953

16 LYNN, LANCE 6911
17 GREINKE, ZACK 6697
18 ACUNA, RONALD 6559
19 MONCADA, YOAN 6498
20 MINOR, MIKE 6455
21 ALBIES,OZZIE 6270
22 ARENADO, NOLAN 6244
23 BOGAERTS, XANDER 6237
24 DONALDSON, JOSH 6156
25 DEVERS, RAFAEL 6147
26 STRASBURG, STEPHEN 6119
27 SOTO, JUAN 6094
28 BIEBER, SHANE 6009
29 MORTON, CHARLIE 5955
30 MUNCY, MAX 5896

10. Carl Goetz Posted: December 01, 2019 at 07:53 PM (#5904731)

I made adjustments (mostly defense discounting) to 4 different WAR measurements and blended them into a score. Deviations to the score are typically for postseason performance. I also gave close battles to the guy who was more consistent across methods. I gave a catcher bonus that's not reflected in the score number.
1) Alex Bregman (8.47)
2) Mike Trout (8.60)
3) Cody Bellinger (8.03)
4) Gerrit Cole (7.58)
5) Justin Verlander (7.93)
6) Stephen Strasburg (6.74)
7) Marcus Semien (7.66)
8) Jacob deGrom (7.61)
9) Christian Yelich (7.39)
10) Anthony Rendon (6.53)
11) Max Scherzer (6.15)
12) Lance Lynn (6.84)
13) Mookie Betts (6.60)
14) Zack Greinke (6.14)
15) George Springer (6.02)

11. MrC. Posted: December 02, 2019 at 10:07 AM (#5904793)

2019 Ballot

1. Alex Bregman 9.19 WARR
2. Gerrit Cole 7.95 WARR
3. Mike Trout 7.80 WARR
4. Anthony Rendon 7.47 WARR
5. Marcus Semien 7.46 WARR
6. Cody Bellinger 6.98 WARR
7. Zack Greinke 5.06 WARR (NL) + 1.72 WARR (AL) = 6.78 WARR
8. Max Scherzer 6.74 WARR
9. Mookie Betts 6.67 WARR
10. Cristian Yelich 6.42 WARR
11. Justin Verlander 6.20 WARR
12. Nolan Arenado 6.14 WARR
13. Juan Soto 6.14 WARR
14. Stephen Strasburg 6.02 WARR
15. George Springer 5.93 WARR

Rest of the top 25
16. Matt Chapman
17. Jacob deGrom
18. Kolten Wong
19. DJ LeMahieu
20. Lance Lynn
21. Hyun-Jin Ryu
22. Ketel Marte
23. Pete Alonso
24. Jonathon Villar
25. Eugenio Suarez

12. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: December 03, 2019 at 06:27 PM (#5905391)

Official 2019 MMP Ballot (no postseason bonuses):

1) Mike Trout: Best ML player and centerfielder.
2) Alex Bregman: Best ML infielder.
3) Cody Bellinger: Best NL player and ML right fielder.
4) Marcus Semien: Best ML shortstop.
5) Christian Yelich:
6) Anthony Rendon: Best ML full-time third baseman.
7) Ketel Marte: Best NL player who played a considerable amount in CF.
8) DJ LeMahieu: Best ML player who played a considerable amount at 2B.
9) Mookie Betts: Best AL right fielder.
10) Xander Bogaerts
11) George Springer
12) Pete Alonso: Best ML first baseman.
13) Justin Verlander: Best ML pitcher.
14) Gerrit Cole
15) Nolan Arenado

NL CYA: Zack Greinke

13. Michael J. Binkley's anxiety closet Posted: December 03, 2019 at 10:15 PM (#5905423)

2019 MMP Ballot:

Just a quick review of my system - I create my own version of WAR, which I call mWAR (for my WAR, Michael WAR, Mengel WAR, pick your preference). I use BB-Ref for the offensive component, and an average of BB-Ref and Baseball Gauge for defensive and pitching components. For position players, I adjust WAR for actual historical medians/replacement levels for each position. I adjust the mWAR of every player and pitcher for standard deviation. I then run the final mWAR number through Nate Silver's rate-based salary-estimator used by Dan Rosenheck in his original WARP calculations. Finally, I add a bonus based upon postseason cWPA to arrive at final salary for the year.

(number in parentheses is salary divided by $1M)

1. Cody Bellinger (20.30)
2. Mike Trout (20.22) - AL MMP
3. Marcus Semien (18.15)
4. Alex Bregman (17.12)
5. Christian Yelich (17.10)
6. Jacob deGrom (15.86) - MMPitcher
7. Gerrit Cole (14.55) - AL MMPitcher
8. Justin Verlander (14.29)
9. Anthony Rendon (14.12)
10. Ketel Marte (13.98)
11. Zack Greinke (13.39)
12. Matt Chapman (12.75)
13. Stephen Strasburg (12.74)
14. Mookie Betts (12.60)
15. Mike Minor (12.36)

16-25. George Springer, Juan Soto, DJ LeMahieu, Pete Alonso, Lance Lynn, Max Scherzer, Kolton Wong, Hyun-jin Ryu, Ronald Acuna, Max Muncy.

2019 All-Stars:
c- J.T. Realmuto
1b - Pete Alonso
2b - DJ LeMahieu
3b - Alex Bregman
ss- Marcus Semien
lf - Juan Soto
cf - Mike Trout
rf - Cody Bellinger

sp- Jacob deGrom
sp- Gerrit Cole
sp- Justin Verlander
sp- Zack Greinke
sp- Stephen Strasburg
rp- Liam Hendriks

14. DL from MN Posted: December 04, 2019 at 04:02 PM (#5905674)

Election is over

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Most Meritorious Player: 2019 Ballot

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