2021 Ballot

1) Shohei Otani - combined value puts him comfortably at #1
2) Zach Wheeler - best pitcher
3) Carlos Correa - excellent fielder, small postseason bump doesn't move him to #2
4) Marcus Semien - good glove
5) Fernando Tatis Jr - below average glove but strong baserunning
6) Walker Buehler - postseason work moves him ahead of Ray
7) Robbie Ray
8) Juan Soto - best bat in the National League
9) Trea Turner
10) Jose Ramirez - he is an overlooked star
11) Brandon Crawford
12) Wade Miley
13) Austin Riley - postseason moves him onto the ballot
14) Vladimir Guerrero Jr - best overall bat
15) Bo Bichette

16-22) Ranger Suarez, Bryan Reynolds, Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer, Brandon Woodruff, Tyler O'Neill, Gerrit Cole

2021 MMP ballot

1) Shohei Ohtani - a historic season, and for once the merit actually backs up the outsized narrative
2) Zack Wheeler - IMO, a pretty clear case as the best pitcher in baseball, though some are close
3) Marcus Semien - played every single game as a SS and hit 45 HR with well above average defense, that's a good way to accrue a ton of value
4) Juan Soto - this dude may well revive the walk-more-than-strike-out mold for top flight hitters, which I thought was extinct
5) Vlad Guerrero, Jr. - played virtually every game, hit almost 50 HRs; one of the best offensive performances of the season
6) Walker Buehler - over 200 IP at a fantastic rate, another thing that's nearing extinction
7) Carlos Correa - well rounded performance, strong offense with strong defense at SS, just behind Semien on both (and playing time)
8) Max Scherzer - Phenomenal K/BB as always with Scherzer, and top line run prevention
9) Robbie Ray - went back and forth with Scherzer and Ray, but Ray's peripherals not as strong across the board. Still a fantastic season
10) Jose Ramirez - where does all his power come from? Regardless, another great well rounded player
11) Fernando Tatis Jr. - Great offensive player, but missed some time and didn't add defense
12) Trea Turner - Turner finally lived up to his pretty massive prospect hype this year
13) Corbin Burnes - By FIP, this season was not just phenomenal, but one of the best of all time
14) Bryce Harper - Second best offensive (and overall) season of Harper's career, a monster offensive season by everything except counting stats
15) Gerrit Cole - A very solid combination of peripherals, innings, and run prevention

16) Brandon Crawford - In his prime, he was a defensive phenom who managed to be average with the bat, now at 34 he has the best season of his career on the back of great offense
17) Kevin Gausman - in the mold of Gerrit Cole, good all around season, best of Gausman's career (the Giants got a lot of those this year)
18) Tyler O'Neill - nothing jumps out at you, but strong offense with average overall defense is valuable
19) Bo Bichette - MLB has never seen a legacy crop like the current one, right? I'll take 100+ runs/RBI and 30 HR from my SS
20) Brandon Woodruff - the Brewers pitching staff was excellent, Woodruff another guy with strong innings, strong peripherals, and strong run prevention (and an unfair W/L record)

1) Shohei Ohtani - Had a season that we could have only dreamed of when he first came over from Japan. Hit 46 dingers, had a 3.18 ERA, with a 100 mph fastball and a 119 mph exit velocity. Could have been an all star as a hitter or a pitcher.
2) Juan Soto - I can't look past the .465 OBP. Mike Trout better be looking over his shoulder. This young dude is outstanding.
3) Zack Wheeler - The best pitcher in either league for the full course of the season, and actually pitched over 200 innings.
4) Vladito - Even using old timey numbers the quality of his season is obvious. 48 HR, 111 RBI, .293 Avg is MVP candidate quality in any season.
5) Trea Turner - I cannot believe the Nats traded him away midseason. He's not the best defensive shortstop in baseball, but this is a better year than anyone else had and he did it despite being shunted to a position he hadn't played since 2016.
6) Marcus Semien - Did you know that Davey Johnson once hit 43 dingers in a single season? One of the things I learned when looking up where Semien's 45 ranked for all time 2B seasons, he took Davey's record.
7) Corbin Burnes - Fangraphs WAR has him a tick over Wheeler, and a 1.63 FIP is extremely cool and good. I just can't see only pitching 167 innings as being enough to get him above Wheeler or the hitters above him.
8) Jose Ramirez - I wonder who he'll be traded for since he only has one year left on his contract?
9) Bryce Harper - Oh, there's the player who we all thought was going to be battling Mike Trout into the history books. And he's still only 28!
10) Fernando Tatis, Jr. - I thought I'd be ranking him a lot higher early in the season, but he faded in the second half... if a .875 OPS at shortstop can really be called fading.
11) Walker Buehler - He pitched very well, with a 165 ERA+, and pitched over 200 innings. That's impressive this season.
12) Brian Reynolds - Where did this guy come from?
13) Robbie Ray - The best pitcher in the AL this past season, although that's not saying that much.
14) Carlos Correa - I'm sorry, I'm just not buying that Correa was worth 3 wins on defense this past year.
15) Jacob deGrom - You might think that this is just a homer vote, but he's ranked 17th on the combined fWAR chart. So it's a homer vote, but a defensible one!

2021 Final Ballot

With value added runs (RE24) information fully available in 2021, I have gone back to using this as the basis for the offensive number for the WARR value. In the preliminary ballot, I used the RE24/boLi numbers, but after further reflection I decided for MVP purposes that unadjusted RE24 was the better choice. As a result, there have been several changes in my ballot since the preliminary.

1. Shohei Ohtani 9.29 WARR
2. Juan Soto 7.61 WARR
3. Carlos Correa 7.21 WARR
4. Zack Wheeler 7.12 WARR
5. Jose Ramirez 6.60 WARR
6. Walker Buehler 6.19 WARR
7. Fenando Tatis Jr 6.10 WARR
8. Vladimir Guerrero JR 6.06 WARR
9. Robbie Ray 6.00 WARR
10. Ranger Suarez 5.72 WARR
11. Aaron Judge 5.59 WARR
12. Bo Bichette 5.37 WARR
13. Brandon Crawford 5.27 WARR
14. Manny Machado 5.25 WARR
15. Wade Miley 5.25 WARR

Rest of players with WARR > 5
16. Trea Turner
17. Bryce Harper
18. Gerrit Cole
19. Brian Reynolds
20. Max Fried
21. Marcus Semien

One weekend left for voting!

Still a couple days left to post a ballot

Election is supposed to end tomorrow but I only have 4 ballots. Do people need an extension?

Two week extension. We usually end on the 1st Wed of the month. Please vote.

If I have two weeks, I might get in a ballot. My main problem is that, with BaseballGauge gone, I have no source of Win Shares. Since I have no faith in any other method, that means that I cannot produce a list. However, if I have another week, Bill James' site will let me look up all the players I want, one by one, getting their WS. If I just write down every name who's been listed on a ballot yet, I can look up those players' 2021 numbers and have a ballot. The big danger is that someone that WS would certainly rank did not even have one vote from anyone else, so I might miss a name. Best I can do.

- Brock J. Hanke

It is difficult to do a "wisdom of crowds" exercise without a crowd.

PM (#6054286)
If I have two weeks, I might get in a ballot. My main problem is that, with BaseballGauge gone, I have no source of Win Shares. Since I have no faith in any other method, that means that I cannot produce a list. However, if I have another week, Bill James' site will let me look up all the players I want, one by one, getting their WS. If I just write down every name who's been listed on a ballot yet, I can look up those players' 2021 numbers and have a ballot. The big danger is that someone that WS would certainly rank did not even have one vote from anyone else, so I might miss a name. Best I can do.

- Brock J. Hanke


Brock, I don’t know if this helps but I found this link to Win Shares on the Hey Bill part of the Bill James Online site. It has the Win Shares leaderboard for each year & under batting and pitching profiles you can search players yearly Win Shares

http://bjprofiles.bisdata.com/StatisticsReport_new.aspx?Type=507&League=1

My 2021 ballot- no postseason credit but some small credit for playing for a contender

1. S Ohtani -historic season
2. V Guerrero Jr. -best bat
3. J Soto -best NL player, amazing OBP
4. M Semien
5. T Turner -the difference between #4 &5 was the closest on my ballot
6. C Correa
7. B Harper
8. B Crawford
9. P Goldschmidt
10.W Buehler-best pitcher in a weak year for hurlers
11.J Ramirez -as stated upthread, an overlooked star
12.Z Wheeler
13.S Perez -small catcher bonus
14.R Ray -best AL pitcher
15.F Tatis

Just missed
16.A Judge
17.A Riley
18.M Scherzer
19.C Burnes
20.M Olson
21.G Cole
22.B Reynolds

2021 MMP Ballot

I use a version of Nate Silver's rate-based salary estimator, using what I call mWAR as the base. mWAR is an amalgamation of bWAR, fWAR, and WS (making an adjustment to the baseline of pitching WS to account for the lower pitching WS numbers relative to most WAR systems), adjusting the number for historical standard deviation and true positional replacement level. That said, it was a down year for pitchers in general and only one pure pitcher appears on my 15-man ballot. I also give a cWPA bonus for positive post-season play.

1. Shohei Ohtani, dh/p, LAA ($21.16M, 8.86 mWAR) - a clear #1
2. Juan Soto, rf, WAS ($15.26M, 7.48 mWAR) - NL MMP
3. Bryce Harper, rf, WAS ($14.03M, 6.86 mWAR) - he'll just have to settle for the BBWAA NL MVP
4. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1b, TOR ($13.13M, 7.08 mWAR)
5. Fernando Tatis Jr., ss, SD ($13.01M, 6.31 mWAR)
6. Tyler O'Neill, lf, STL ($12.19M, 6.05 mWAR)
7. Jose Ramirez, 3b, CLE ($12.11M, 6,50 mWAR)
8. Brandon Crawford, ss, SF ($11.97M, 6.04 mWAR)
9. Aaron Judge, rf, NYY ($11.82M, 6.39 mWAR)
10. Zack Wheeler, p, PHI ($11.71M, 6.68 mWAR) - MMPitcher
11. Byron Buxton, cf, MIN ($11.66M, 4.21 mWAR)
12. Bryan Reynolds, cf, PIT ($11.63M, 6.39 mWAR)
13. Marcus Semien, 2b, TOR ($11.29M, 6.60 mWAR)
14. Paul Goldschmidt, 1b, STL ($10.77M, 6.25 mWAR)
15. Austin Riley, 3b, ATL ($10.73M, 5.45 mWAR)

16-30. Trey Turner, Matt Olson, Max Muncy, Walker Buehler, Kyle Tucker, Carlos Correa, Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Brandon Lowe, Robbie Ray (AL MMPitcher), Freddie Freeman, Cedric Mullens, Manny Machado, Salvador Perez.

2021 mWAR All-Stars:

c - Salvador Perez
1b - Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
2b - Marcus Semien
3b - Jose Ramirez
ss - Fernando Tatis Jr.
lf - Tyler O'Neill
cf - Byron Buxton
rf - Juan Soto
dh - Shohei Ohtani

sp - Zack Wheeler
sp - Walker Buehler
sp - Corbin Burnes
sp - Max Scherzer
sp - Robbie Ray

rp - Josh Hader

Here's my ballot copied over from the discussion thread. It's simply my messing around with baseball reference WAR, fangraphs WAR, and Win Shares and coming up with numbers. There's a slight catcher bonus included.

1 OHTANI, SHOHEI 10000
2 SOTO, JUAN 8028
3 GUERRERO, VLADIMIR 7732
4 HARPER, BRYCE 7621
5 RAMIREZ, JOSE 7618
6 TURNER, TREA 7528
7 WHEELER, ZACK 7527
8 SEMIEN, MARCUS 7451
9 TATIS, FERNANDO 7411
10 CRAWFORD, BRANDON 7242
11 JUDGE, AARON 7168
12 CORREA, CARLOS 7071
13 REYNOLDS, BRYAN 6942
14 GOLDSCHMIDT, PAUL 6769
15 BURNES, CORBIN 6605

Last day to vote. No ballots from Qufini, Murphy or Brock

Election is over. Thanks for participating.