MVP Awards Will Probably Be Unsatisfying This Season

Grandstander · September 3rd, 2008, 09:22 AM

This is a year where the top performers seems to be clustered on teams which are not in contention. Going by the fattest stats among position players, the best NL players have been Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Matt Holiday and Ryan Ludwick. None of the above has much of a chance of being in the post season. The top players on a contendeing teams are probably Ryan Braun and Chase Utley. Braun plays a non demanding defensive position and does not play it especially well. His stats are good, but not eyepopping, he looks like he will finish with a line around .300-40-110 or so, he currently has a .942 OPS. Utley is still hitting well, but has slowed after a super hot start. Both face the problem of having been clearly outperformed by those players I listed who aren't on contending teams.

In the AL, the top hitting performer has been Milton Bradley, but he is mainly a DH these days and has also missed nearly a month of play. He's tops in OPS, but plays in a hitter friendly environment and a lot of his high OBA is walks rather than hits. Plus Texas won't be in the post season. Alex Rodriguez is the next best hitter, but he has also missed a chunk of time and the Yankees do not look like a playoff team this year either. Carlos Quentin makes for an attractive candidate....third highest AL OPS and plays for a contender. Right behind him is Kevin Youkillis who is 4th in OPS and also playes for a contender. With both of them, we are again talking about hitters who do not play tough defensive positions.

We still have a month to play and someone getting hot down the stretch could decide it, but at the moment, both league choices look like hold your nose and pick someone because you have to select someone sorts of decisions.

I think that most would agree that Cliff Lee is cruising to the AL Cy Young Award. Interesting, is it not, that there seems to be a general philosophy that the MVP must be from a contender, but the CY Young winner is typically the best pitcher regardless of his team's place in the standings.

I'm prejudiced in his favor of course, but I really think that Tim Lincecum should get the NL Cy Young...he's the best pitcher even if his team doesn't support him with many runs. He leads the NL in ERA and all of baseball in strikeouts, I suspect that Brandon Webb will win even though he is superior to Lincecum only in wins.

jtur88 · September 3rd, 2008, 05:21 PM

I was going to argue that the most valuable pitchers are the ones who can burn the most innings. But there is an odd consistency in that area. 18 pitchers are within 10% (21 innings, or 3 starts) of the MLB leader, and 40 are within 20%. That would be like the HR leader having 50, and 18 hitters having 45 or more, and then trying to evaluate them using that metric. The three you named (Lee, Webb, Lincicum) are clustered within 4 innings of each other, ranking between 5th and 10th. All of this might say more about current me-too managing strategy than about pitching.

bigheadache · September 4th, 2008, 07:30 PM

I'd say the NL MVP will probably be Pujols. More by default than anything else. Berkman killed his candidacy with a bad July. He would have been my pick at the AS break. Delgado has been excellent over the last couple of months, but his early season was worse than Berkman's July. Chipper got off to a hot start, but has cooled down and been hobbled by injuries.

In the AL, I have no idea. ARod is certainly the best player, but he has not had a typpical ARod year and with the Yankees all but out, it's hard to see him getting much support. I'd be surprised if Bradley had more votes than his more popular teammate and Hr Derby winner Josh Hamilton. To some extent this is a popularity contest and both ARod and Bradley get hurt in this area. Quinten or Morneau seem to be the most likely candidates, but a strong run by the Redsox could net the reward for Youklis.

I agree that Lincecum has been the better pitcher, but Webb will probably win. ESPN seems to be campaigning for Sabathia, but his mediocre performance in Cleveland has to factor in to some extent. Short of a Webb collapse in September, I think he will win.

As for th AL Cy Young, Lee will prbably win, but I wouldn't count out Frankie Rodriguez of the Angels. This may be one of those rare years where a reliever wins. He is almost assured of breaking the saves record and with a relative unknown like Lee being the only competition, he could win.

Grandstander · September 4th, 2008, 09:17 PM

Jeepers, I hope that K-Rod does not win the award. As did Thigpen in his record setting year, Rodriguez is pitching well, but not off the charts super duper like some of the seasons turned in by Gagne, Eckersley, Smoltz and Rivera have been. Last year's AL saves leader had an ERA over 5.00. Until recently, Brian Wilson of the Giants had been leading the NL in saves and his ERA has been over 4.00 all year. There really isn't much meaning in the save stat as a measure of pitching excellence. Take away the save stat and Rodriguez is having a fine season, but no special note of it would be taken. He isn't the best pitcher in the league, he isn't even turning in the best pitching performance among releivers. Joe Nathan has pitched exactly the same number of innings while giving up three fewer hits and fourteen fewer walks. K-Rod has an ERA of 2.43, Nathan is at 1.07. By coincidence, Papelbon has also pitched exactly 59 innings and has given up the the same number of hits as Rodriguez, but walked 23 fewer batters, which explains his 1.68 ERA. Joakim Soria also has superior stats to Rodriguez, so do Mariano Rivera and Bobby Jenks. Then comes Rodriguez, the sixth best reliever in the league. If the others all have superior stats across the board except for the saves, why are we allowing this one stat, the least precise among them, to dictate our perceptions of value?

Zen653 · September 5th, 2008, 12:18 AM

Quote:

Right behind him is Kevin Youkillis who is 4th in OPS and also playes for a contender. With both of them, we are again talking about hitters who do not play tough defensive positions.

Many Red Sox fans and local Boston scribes don't even consider Youkilis to be the MVP of the Red Sox, let alone the MVP of the league. Dustin Pedroia has been getting all the love in Boston lately - much of it deserved. Pedroia plays a physically demanding defensive position (and plays it extremely well), he leads the league in batting average, and he's stealing bases at a solid clip over the last few weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if he at least ends up with a Gold Glove.

While you're right that Youkilis plays a relatively easy defensive position, he's a Gold Glover at that position, and an above average defensive player at third base (which is where he has been playing about half of the time during the absence of Mike Lowell.) I think a Gold Glove defensive player at any position should be looked at closely, especially when his offensive numbers are within range of traditional MVP outputs. My problem with Youkilis' candidacy is that .315 AVG - .387 OBA - 24 HR - 94 RBI through 5 months, while good, is not spectacular. Voters tend to favor players from contending teams with gaudier HR/RBI totals, even at the expense of defense and batting average. Thus, my prediction is that Carlos Quentin will win the American League MVP Award (.288 AVG - .394 OBA - 36 HR - 100 RBI), on account of his significant edge in homeruns, and slight advantage in RBI.

I think Youkilis only wins the MVP Award at this point if he (1) has a phenomenal September (unlikely, given recent injuries), (2) the Red Sox pass the Rays in the standings to win the AL East, and (3) Quentin gets injured or goes through a 2-3 week slump that lowers his batting average to the lower 260 range.

jtur88 · September 5th, 2008, 11:48 AM

I doubt if there would be a significant outcy if Pujols wins the NL MVP. Looks like a pretty safe call, since the Cardinals were actually in the race most of the year, and would today be the winningest team in baseball if they had converted even an average nunber of saves. It was Pujols who have the bullpen the save opportunities that they blew.

However, I think in St. Louis, Ludwick would probably get the nod over Pujols.

bigheadache · September 5th, 2008, 02:55 PM

Well Quenten broke his wrist and is out for the rest of the season.

My rambling post wasn't so much on who I think should win, but who I think will or could win. Because of the saves record, I think KRod will get a lot of votes and will prbably finish second.

Youklis may not be the best player on the RedSox, but voters dig the long ball. He will be in the discussion.

The NL CY is Brandon Webb's to lose. I don't see that happening.

Pujols is the safe pick and the better known player, but Ludwick should certainly get some attention. Without a standout candidate, I think Pujols will win.

Grandstander · September 5th, 2008, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigheadache

Well Quenten broke his wrist and is out for the rest of the season.

My rambling post wasn't so much on who I think should win, but who I think will or could win. Because of the saves record, I think KRod will get a lot of votes and will prbably finish second.

.

Oh, I took it the way you explain above, not as advocacy from you. You may well be right about his attracting votes, but Lee has already won 20 and leads all MLB starters in ERA, so he would have to have some spectacular collapse to blow the award. I don't see K-Rod as a threat to win, but busting the saves record probably will make him one of the runners up.

Grandstander · September 9th, 2008, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtur88

I doubt if there would be a significant outcy if Pujols wins the NL MVP. Looks like a pretty safe call, since the Cardinals were actually in the race most of the year, and would today be the winningest team in baseball if they had converted even an average nunber of saves. It was Pujols who have the bullpen the save opportunities that they blew.

However, I think in St. Louis, Ludwick would probably get the nod over Pujols.

In philosophy, I agree with you. My notion of the MVP award is that it is an individual, not a team honor. I therefore see no reason to drop from consideration, those players who accomplished the most while being surrounded by low achieving teammates. It is depressing that the BBWA has never thought to get together and issue an updated guide for voters where they actually make a decision and stick with it. While I favor a system which would make everyone elligble for the award regardless of team performance, I would prefer an unambiguous approach even if it meant that they decided only players from competitive teams are elligible. As things stand, every year we have the same stupid argument about all this and it is never resolved.

Nor does looking to tradition add clarity. In some years, the voters have indeed tapped players from non contending ballclubs, and as I noted previously, these same voters have different standards when identifying the Cy Young recipient who is not required to be with a winning team.

The better defined the award criteria is, the more intelligent will be the votes cast.

jtur88 · September 9th, 2008, 05:26 PM

Not that there are very many races left. The Twins and Whit Sox are playing like that Little League team on South Park that tried to lose and be eliminated so they could go back to their video games.

I am losing interest, the more convinced I become that the World Series will be the Mets and the Red Sox, where the only thing I can hope for (that they both lose) can hardly be the outcome.

bigheadache · September 10th, 2008, 08:09 AM

The NL Wildcard is heating up. Maybe Berkman can win the MVP after all.

Grandstander · September 11th, 2008, 08:32 AM

There is no precedent for this, so it would be extremely controversial, but would anyone else agree that a case could be mounted for Manny Ramirez as the NL MVP?

The man has run wild since arriving in LA. In 38 games he has 162 plate appearances and has batted .396-.488-.776 with 14 homeruns and 40 RBI. In that time the Dodgers have gone from a game under .500 and two games behind Arizona, to five games over .500 and a 3.5 game lead over the Diamondbacks. In view of the stats he has posted, it is impossible to argue that Ramirez hasn't been the key factor in this turnaround for LA. He is THE impact player of the year in the NL.

Of course Manny having spent the first four months of the season in the AL, the above thinking is unlikely to be common. Further, the manner in which he forced his escape from Boston wasn't the sort of stuff the voters have in mind when considering intangibles. Ramirez really has no shot at the award no matter what he does in September, but if you stress the word "value" in MVP, Manny has been enormously valuable, the difference between first and second place for a club.

vtred · September 11th, 2008, 08:52 AM

Although i'm biased...if the Mets win the division it has to go to Delgado...he has carried the team the last 3 months...

Grandstander · September 11th, 2008, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vtred

Although i'm biased...if the Mets win the division it has to go to Delgado...he has carried the team the last 3 months...

Even more so the last few games. The trouble is that he is getting a late start on productivity after a so so performance to start the year. His overall stats still aren't up to a very impressive level, an .860 OPS typically does not win an MVP award unless the guy who posts it plays a middle infield position or catches. If he stays hot over the last few weeks and the Mets do win the division, he's a contender.

Grandstander · September 15th, 2008, 07:18 PM

Comparing Lincecum and Webb by the numbers..Lincecum in bold, Webb underneath.

Games Started
30
31

Innings Pitched
207.3
205

Hits
165
184

Walks
77
59

WHIP
1.17
1.18

Runs
62
86

Strikeouts
237
168

ERA
2.43
3.28

Batting average against
.219
.234

OBA against
.295
.299

Slugging against
.309
.334

OPS against
.604
.633

Winning percentage
.850
.633

Wins
17
20

Losses
3
7

Quality starts
24
22

The numbers scream that Lincecum is the superior pitcher. Other than walking more batters than Webb, Lincecum has the edge in every single stat except.....wins.

Is the the inability of the Giants bullpen to hold a lead really the most important thing to have in mind when determining the best pitcher in the NL?

September 3rd, 2008, 09:22 AM	#1 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 6,611	MVP Awards Will Probably Be Unsatisfying This Season This is a year where the top performers seems to be clustered on teams which are not in contention. Going by the fattest stats among position players, the best NL players have been Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Matt Holiday and Ryan Ludwick. None of the above has much of a chance of being in the post season. The top players on a contendeing teams are probably Ryan Braun and Chase Utley. Braun plays a non demanding defensive position and does not play it especially well. His stats are good, but not eyepopping, he looks like he will finish with a line around .300-40-110 or so, he currently has a .942 OPS. Utley is still hitting well, but has slowed after a super hot start. Both face the problem of having been clearly outperformed by those players I listed who aren't on contending teams. In the AL, the top hitting performer has been Milton Bradley, but he is mainly a DH these days and has also missed nearly a month of play. He's tops in OPS, but plays in a hitter friendly environment and a lot of his high OBA is walks rather than hits. Plus Texas won't be in the post season. Alex Rodriguez is the next best hitter, but he has also missed a chunk of time and the Yankees do not look like a playoff team this year either. Carlos Quentin makes for an attractive candidate....third highest AL OPS and plays for a contender. Right behind him is Kevin Youkillis who is 4th in OPS and also playes for a contender. With both of them, we are again talking about hitters who do not play tough defensive positions. We still have a month to play and someone getting hot down the stretch could decide it, but at the moment, both league choices look like hold your nose and pick someone because you have to select someone sorts of decisions. I think that most would agree that Cliff Lee is cruising to the AL Cy Young Award. Interesting, is it not, that there seems to be a general philosophy that the MVP must be from a contender, but the CY Young winner is typically the best pitcher regardless of his team's place in the standings. I'm prejudiced in his favor of course, but I really think that Tim Lincecum should get the NL Cy Young...he's the best pitcher even if his team doesn't support him with many runs. He leads the NL in ERA and all of baseball in strikeouts, I suspect that Brandon Webb will win even though he is superior to Lincecum only in wins.

September 3rd, 2008, 05:21 PM	#2 (permalink)
jtur88 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Texas Posts: 7,857	I was going to argue that the most valuable pitchers are the ones who can burn the most innings. But there is an odd consistency in that area. 18 pitchers are within 10% (21 innings, or 3 starts) of the MLB leader, and 40 are within 20%. That would be like the HR leader having 50, and 18 hitters having 45 or more, and then trying to evaluate them using that metric. The three you named (Lee, Webb, Lincicum) are clustered within 4 innings of each other, ranking between 5th and 10th. All of this might say more about current me-too managing strategy than about pitching. __________________ ------------------ When people ask what I hope to see before I die, I answer that I've already seen too much.

September 5th, 2008, 11:48 AM	#6 (permalink)
jtur88 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Texas Posts: 7,857	I doubt if there would be a significant outcy if Pujols wins the NL MVP. Looks like a pretty safe call, since the Cardinals were actually in the race most of the year, and would today be the winningest team in baseball if they had converted even an average nunber of saves. It was Pujols who have the bullpen the save opportunities that they blew. However, I think in St. Louis, Ludwick would probably get the nod over Pujols. __________________ ------------------ When people ask what I hope to see before I die, I answer that I've already seen too much.

September 9th, 2008, 05:26 PM	#10 (permalink)
jtur88 Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: South Texas Posts: 7,857	The 2008 Race Not that there are very many races left. The Twins and Whit Sox are playing like that Little League team on South Park that tried to lose and be eliminated so they could go back to their video games. I am losing interest, the more convinced I become that the World Series will be the Mets and the Red Sox, where the only thing I can hope for (that they both lose) can hardly be the outcome. __________________ ------------------ When people ask what I hope to see before I die, I answer that I've already seen too much.

September 4th, 2008, 07:30 PM	#3 (permalink)
bigheadache Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roswell, NM Posts: 945	I'd say the NL MVP will probably be Pujols. More by default than anything else. Berkman killed his candidacy with a bad July. He would have been my pick at the AS break. Delgado has been excellent over the last couple of months, but his early season was worse than Berkman's July. Chipper got off to a hot start, but has cooled down and been hobbled by injuries. In the AL, I have no idea. ARod is certainly the best player, but he has not had a typpical ARod year and with the Yankees all but out, it's hard to see him getting much support. I'd be surprised if Bradley had more votes than his more popular teammate and Hr Derby winner Josh Hamilton. To some extent this is a popularity contest and both ARod and Bradley get hurt in this area. Quinten or Morneau seem to be the most likely candidates, but a strong run by the Redsox could net the reward for Youklis. I agree that Lincecum has been the better pitcher, but Webb will probably win. ESPN seems to be campaigning for Sabathia, but his mediocre performance in Cleveland has to factor in to some extent. Short of a Webb collapse in September, I think he will win. As for th AL Cy Young, Lee will prbably win, but I wouldn't count out Frankie Rodriguez of the Angels. This may be one of those rare years where a reliever wins. He is almost assured of breaking the saves record and with a relative unknown like Lee being the only competition, he could win.

September 4th, 2008, 09:17 PM	#4 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 6,611	Jeepers, I hope that K-Rod does not win the award. As did Thigpen in his record setting year, Rodriguez is pitching well, but not off the charts super duper like some of the seasons turned in by Gagne, Eckersley, Smoltz and Rivera have been. Last year's AL saves leader had an ERA over 5.00. Until recently, Brian Wilson of the Giants had been leading the NL in saves and his ERA has been over 4.00 all year. There really isn't much meaning in the save stat as a measure of pitching excellence. Take away the save stat and Rodriguez is having a fine season, but no special note of it would be taken. He isn't the best pitcher in the league, he isn't even turning in the best pitching performance among releivers. Joe Nathan has pitched exactly the same number of innings while giving up three fewer hits and fourteen fewer walks. K-Rod has an ERA of 2.43, Nathan is at 1.07. By coincidence, Papelbon has also pitched exactly 59 innings and has given up the the same number of hits as Rodriguez, but walked 23 fewer batters, which explains his 1.68 ERA. Joakim Soria also has superior stats to Rodriguez, so do Mariano Rivera and Bobby Jenks. Then comes Rodriguez, the sixth best reliever in the league. If the others all have superior stats across the board except for the saves, why are we allowing this one stat, the least precise among them, to dictate our perceptions of value?

September 5th, 2008, 02:55 PM	#7 (permalink)
bigheadache Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roswell, NM Posts: 945	Well Quenten broke his wrist and is out for the rest of the season. My rambling post wasn't so much on who I think should win, but who I think will or could win. Because of the saves record, I think KRod will get a lot of votes and will prbably finish second. Youklis may not be the best player on the RedSox, but voters dig the long ball. He will be in the discussion. The NL CY is Brandon Webb's to lose. I don't see that happening. Pujols is the safe pick and the better known player, but Ludwick should certainly get some attention. Without a standout candidate, I think Pujols will win.

September 10th, 2008, 08:09 AM	#11 (permalink)
bigheadache Moderator Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roswell, NM Posts: 945	The NL Wildcard is heating up. Maybe Berkman can win the MVP after all.

September 11th, 2008, 08:32 AM	#12 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 6,611	There is no precedent for this, so it would be extremely controversial, but would anyone else agree that a case could be mounted for Manny Ramirez as the NL MVP? The man has run wild since arriving in LA. In 38 games he has 162 plate appearances and has batted .396-.488-.776 with 14 homeruns and 40 RBI. In that time the Dodgers have gone from a game under .500 and two games behind Arizona, to five games over .500 and a 3.5 game lead over the Diamondbacks. In view of the stats he has posted, it is impossible to argue that Ramirez hasn't been the key factor in this turnaround for LA. He is THE impact player of the year in the NL. Of course Manny having spent the first four months of the season in the AL, the above thinking is unlikely to be common. Further, the manner in which he forced his escape from Boston wasn't the sort of stuff the voters have in mind when considering intangibles. Ramirez really has no shot at the award no matter what he does in September, but if you stress the word "value" in MVP, Manny has been enormously valuable, the difference between first and second place for a club.

September 11th, 2008, 08:52 AM	#13 (permalink)
vtred Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: NJ Posts: 397	Although i'm biased...if the Mets win the division it has to go to Delgado...he has carried the team the last 3 months...

September 15th, 2008, 07:18 PM	#15 (permalink)
Grandstander Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Parts Unknown Northern California Posts: 6,611	Comparing Lincecum and Webb by the numbers..Lincecum in bold, Webb underneath. Games Started 30 31 Innings Pitched 207.3 205 Hits 165 184 Walks 77 59 WHIP 1.17 1.18 Runs 62 86 Strikeouts 237 168 ERA 2.43 3.28 Batting average against .219 .234 OBA against .295 .299 Slugging against .309 .334 OPS against .604 .633 Winning percentage .850 .633 Wins 17 20 Losses 3 7 Quality starts 24 22 The numbers scream that Lincecum is the superior pitcher. Other than walking more batters than Webb, Lincecum has the edge in every single stat except.....wins. Is the the inability of the Giants bullpen to hold a lead really the most important thing to have in mind when determining the best pitcher in the NL?