About 350 members of SABR selected "retroactive" winners for missing years and leagues beginning in 1900. The elections were conducted by Lyle Spatz, who reported in The Baseball Research Journal 1988. Spatz listed about ten candidates on the ballot for each retroactive award and mimicked the process used by the BBWAA for the official award since 1970: each voter ranked three candidates 1st, 2d, and 3d; those votes were counted as 5, 3, and 1 points.
Bill Deane selected "hypothetical" winners beginning in 1900, for Total Baseball (1st ed., 1989; included in all editions). He "felt a certain responsibility to make my selections consistent with the perceptions and voting trends of a particular era. . . . they are the ones which can be best justified with the available evidence." Sometime in editions 4-6, 1995-99, he revised one selection (see the table).
STATS, Inc., selected "retroactive" annual award winners from 1876, for The All-Time Major League Baseball Sourcebook (1998) . "We didn't try to guess what the voting trends might have been in a particular era. We concentrated on individual statistics (offensive and defensive) and team performance."
John Thorn and John Holway selected annual winners of the "Creighton Award" in The Pitcher (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1987). Their award is named for baseball's first superstar and first fast pitcher, Jim Creighton.
Key: - two different selections (Thorn & Holway differ most often)
* three different selections
# four different selections
Elector SABR members Bill Deane STATS, Inc. Thorn & Holway
BRJ 1988 TB 1989 1998
Federal League
1914F Hendrix -Chi Hendrix
1915F McConnell -Chi McConnell
American League
1901A Young -Bos Young Young Young
1902A Young -Bos Young Young Young
1903A Young -Bos Young Young Young
1904A Chesbro -NY Chesbro Chesbro Chesbro
1905A Waddell -Phi Waddell Waddell Waddell
1906A * Orth -NY Orth (TB6) Orth Pelty -SL
Hess -Cle (TB3)
1907A - Joss -Cle Walsh -Chi Joss Walsh -Chi
1908A - Walsh -Chi Walsh Walsh Joss -Cle
1909A * Mullin -Det Smith -Chi Mullin Krause -Phi
1910A Coombs -Phi Coombs Coombs Coombs
1911A - Johnson -Was Johnson Johnson Gregg -Cle
1912A - Wood -Bos Wood Johnson -Was Johnson
1913A Johnson -Was Johnson Johnson Johnson
1914A - Johnson -Was Johnson Johnson Leonard -Bos
1915A Johnson -Was Johnson Johnson Johnson
1916A - Ruth -Bos Ruth Ruth H.Coveleski -Det
1917A - Cicotte -Chi Cicotte Cicotte S.Coveleski -Cle
1918A Johnson -Was Johnson Johnson Johnson
1919A - Cicotte -Chi Johnson -Was Cicotte Johnson
National League
1900N McGinnity -Bkn McGinnity McGinnity
1901N # Donovan -Bkn Hahn -Cin Phillippe -Pit Willis -Bos
1902N - Chesbro -Pit Taylor -Chi Taylor Taylor
1903N Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Mathewson
1904N McGinnity -NY McGinnity McGinnity McGinnity
1905N Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Mathewson
1906N Brown -Chi Brown Brown Brown
1907N * Mathewson -NY Mathewson Overall -Chi Brown -Chi
1908N - Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Brown -Chi
1909N Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Mathewson
1910N - Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Cole -Chi
1911N - Alexander -Phi Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson
1912N - Marquard -NY Marquard Marquard Tesreau -NY
1913N - Mathewson -NY Mathewson Mathewson Seaton -Phi
1914N - James -Bos James James Doak -SL
1915N Alexander -Phi Alexander Alexander Alexander
1916N Alexander -Phi Alexander Alexander Alexander
1917N Alexander -Phi Alexander Alexander Alexander
1918N Vaughn -Chi Vaughn Vaughn Vaughn
1919N * Barnes -NY Vaughn -Chi Vaughn Alexander -Chi
Elector SABR members Bill Deane STATS, Inc. Thorn & Holway
BRJ 1988 TB 1989- 1998
Notes:
1901N SABR named Donovan over Hahn in a close vote.
1906A SABR named Orth over Joss in a very close vote.
Deane named Hess in edition 3 (1993), Orth in edition 6 (1999).
1909N SABR named Mathewson over Brown in its closest vote.
Scope. The selections by SABR and by Bill Deane begin with the
National League in 1900. That is one year before the founding of the
American League and the advent of the "Deadball Era" as it defines the Deadball Era Committee,
SABR but I have included their 1900 selections here. Selections by
STATS begin with the National League in 1876, the first league-season
recognized as "major" by MLB. Selections by Thorn and Holway begin in 1876,
too. See the 19th century Creighton Awards at
"19th Century Resources".
First-Place Cys. SABR named pitchers on pennant-winning teams for 18 of 39 Cy Young awards; Bill Deane 17 of 41; STATS 19 of 40; Thorn and Holway 13 of 38.
Last-Place Cys. Bill Deane's selection of Noodles Hahn from the 1901 Cincinnati Reds is the only one from a last-place team by any of the four selectors. SABR named no one in its entire series, 1900-1966. The BBWAA honored Steve Carlton from the 1972 Philadelphia Phillies.
Repeat Cys. During the period covered here, only the big three deadball pitchers were named more than three times by any selector.
SABR Deane STATS Th-Hol Mathewson 7 8 7 4 Alexander 4 3 3 4 also 1920 (SABR, Deane, Thorn-Holway) Johnson 5 6 6 5 also 1924 (SABR, Deane, Thorn-Holway)Cy Young was the unanimous choice three times, AL1901-03, and must be a strong candidate for several NL seasons in the 1890s. Thorn and Holway selected Young for 1892.
Acknowledgments. Phil Gawthrop, Lyle Spatz, Bob Allen, and Angelo Louisa provided the four series in electronic format. Gawthrop listed Deane's choices and his own, side-by-side in 'deadball' email, Jan 2001. In the next several weeks, he distributed statistics for the leading candidates, provided some analysis, and revised many of his selections. Consult the deadball email archive, especially "Hypot-CYA" (message 1122), 1 Feb 2001. See Bill Deane, "Awards and Honors", Total Baseball (any edition), for all of his hypothetical Cys and more history of the official award.