Unlike in the AL, where ARod was the obvious choice, nobody seems to agree on who the NL MVP is. In fact, none of the front-runners (Rollins, Holliday, Fielder) are top-five material. I’d be ok if any of the top four guys listed below end up winning it. Here are the details of the rankings:
Only position players are included, because I don’t yet have a good system for pitchers. My guess is that Jake Peavy would fall fifth. RAR is offensive runs above replacement. POS is the positional adjustment. FAA is fielding runs above average relative to position. TVAR is total runs above replacement, the overall rating. A full season of an average player (Coco Crisp or Michael Young, for example) would be worth about 20 runs. 10 runs is about the same as one win.
2007 NL MVP Ballot
10 - Prince Fielder (74 RAR -9 POS -9 FAA 56 TVAR)
Yes, he’s a beast at the plate. No, he’s not an asset in the field. MVP candidate? Sure. MVP? Nope.
9 - Barry Bonds (67 RAR -3 POS -6 FAA 59 TVAR)
Sure, he might be a felon, but if Bonds plays in 2008, he’ll continue to be a stud and there will be a lot of teams wondering why they didn’t sign him.
8 - Todd Helton (53 RAR -9 POS 15 FAA 59 TVAR)
Todd Helton’s the anti-Fielder. Well, he’s actually a very good fielder, but you know what I mean.
7 - Jose Reyes (39 RAR 6 POS 15 FAA 60 TVAR)
Don’t I mean Jimmy Rollins? Nope. For Jimmy, see #11. Reyes actually isn’t that much ahead of Rollins, but his edge in fielding is just bit larger than his disadvantage on offense.
6 - Matt Holliday (61 RAR -5 POS 11 FAA 67 TVAR)
If you want to define MVP with some sort of mystical bent just to move Holliday up in the rankings, go for it. But that doesn’t mean he was the best player. That sounds a little harsh — just a year ago Holliday was extremely underrated.
5 - Carlos Beltran (51 RAR 6 POS 14 FAA 70 TVAR)
Is it merely a coincidence that Carlos Pena and Carlos Beltran were the fifth best players in their respective leagues and both were worth exactly 70 runs above replacement? Ok, of course it is. Beltran’s the rare guy who signed a huge free agent contract and can now be considered a steal. How can someone this good be so underrated?
4 - Chipper Jones (71 RAR -1 POS 10 FAA 80 TVAR)
Given the margin of error on these things, I wouldn’t throw a hissy fit if Chipper received some first place votes (as long as they came from a non-Atlantian writer.) The top four guys were a clear step above the rest.
3 - Chase Utley (61 RAR 0 POS 21 FAA 81 TVAR)
Missing a month to injury doesn’t help your value, but total domination during the other five months certainly does. If (and that’s a big if) Utley had played a full season at the same level of production, he would be a lock for NL MVP.
2 - Albert Pujols (73 RAR -9 POS 23 FAA 87 TVAR)
Other than risking an all-time great player to an injury and already having an all-time great fielder in Scott Rolen at third base, there’s really no reason not to move Pujols back to his original position. I can’t remember a player who’s had so many seasons of being the second best player in his league. In addition to winning the MVP award in 2005, Pujols has three second-place finishes, a third, and a fourth (his rookie season and his lowest finish in any season.)
1 - David Wright (76 RAR -1 POS 15 FAA 89 TVAR)
DWright makes it a sweep for New York third basemen. Many people were surprised at his Gold Glove and excellent fielding metrics this year, but it’s a good example how range can overcome a bad arm. Wright’s season was very similar to Pujols’ on both offense and defense.
Here’s the rest of the top twenty-five, with ties:
Player/TM RAR POS FAA TVAR Rollins,JimmyPHI 51 6 -3 54 Ramirez,HanleyFLA 67 5 -19 53 Cabrera,MiguelFLA 67 -1 -14 51 Tulowitzki,TroyTCOL 24 5 22 51 Rowand,AaronPHI 40 6 3 49 Howard,RyanJPHI 64 -9 -8 47 Gonzalez,AdrianSD 55 -11 2 47 Byrnes,EricARI 32 -4 16 44 Martin,RussellNLAN 34 9 0 43 Zimmerman,RyanWAS 24 -1 18 41 Greene,KhalilSD 26 5 10 41 Ramirez,AramisCHN 39 -1 1 40 Hart,CoreyCMIL 39 -2 2 39 Soriano,AlfonsoCHN 40 -4 2 38 Dunn,AdamCIN 52 -4 -11 37 Berkman,LanceHOU 49 -9 -4 37
Of those guys, some will receive significant MVP love (Rollins, Howard, Byrnes, Martin) while some won’t even cross voters’ minds (Rowand, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, Greene, Hart).
Want to peruse the top 25 players at each position? Here you go:
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | CA | LF | CF | RF
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Of all the ESPN writers who picked the NL MVP, there were only three who didn’t pick Rollins or Holliday: Rob Neyer, Keith Law, and Jonah Keri. They all picked Wright.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Like you, I would have been happy with any of the top four on your list. But Rollins probably wasn’t even the most valuable player at his position, much less his team. He had a fine season to be sure, but yikes.
-j
November 20th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Dave Pinto made two very interesting observations about the voting:
- If first place got 10 points instead of 14, Holliday would have won over Rollins.
- Four voters didn’t even put David Wright on their ballot.
November 20th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Can I also point out that Tulo finished higher than Braun?
November 20th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Ok, one more for now. How did Barry Bonds not get a single vote on any ballot? Brad Hawpe did. Carlos Lee did and the Astros were awful like the Giants. Carlos Marmol did. Idiots.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Sky, your comment on homerderby led me to this site, and spurred a little writing on my part. Check it out if you have sometime, and I would love to hear your thoughts, especially since I disagree with your ballot above based on the premise that I believe sabermetrics are overused (but still important).
The homerderby post is here.
BTW, I like your site. Fascinating stuff. I will visit regularly.
November 21st, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for the link, Nick. I posted some comments at your site. Here’s a question, though. As a guy who seems to get the stats but chooses not to embrace them totally, what’s your reasoning in choosing who the best player in the NL was. (I realize MVP isn’t seen as “best player” by many people, but still.) For what non-statistical things do you give players credit or dock them credit? Is there anything more systematic than a hunch?
November 21st, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Sky, I don’t want to understate the imporance of the stats, because they are the majority of the decision driver. The old standby rankings in the triple crown stats, slugging %, etc. Especially clutch stats, like BA with 2-out and runners in scoring postion or runs driven in that either tied the score or put their team ahead. That being said, part of what makes someone the MVP is the story that they drive. To me Matt Holliday, had that story this year, especially in September. He became the face of that improbable drive to the playoffs.
Baseball will always be a game driven by its love affair with numbers, but what makes the game above all others is the stories that become legend. Like Kirk Gibson’s homer off the Eck. Like the BoSox coming back from down 0-3. Like Jeter’s redirection of the errant throw home. It makes the game special, and its players legend. It is that stuff that can move someone listed as 6th in a statistical measurement to1st in a vote.
I haven’t had a chance to adress your other questions, yet, but I will soon. Keep up the good work.
November 22nd, 2007 at 3:16 am
I read the thread over at The Book blog today … link for those interested: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/jimmy_rollins/#comments
I have to say that I had never really thought about it enough to realize that VORP, OPS, RAR in any form, don’t really make sense at all for the MVP. Sky, I saw your post there so I think I know your stance already … anyway, your rankings are great for true talent, which in general, imo, is more important. But for purposes of the MVP, I agree with Tango (not MGL so much, although to a large degree I do) and therefore I think Rollins was a pretty legit choice.
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 am
MB’s right, I’d rather discuss who the best player was than who was the most valuable. I’m fine with a Win Probability Added driven MVP award, maybe even a Playoff Probability Added award. But to use either one of those definitions to ever support a claim that Jimmy Rollins was the best player in 2007 or to help make his HOF case is absurd. It is what it is, and not worth much more.
If we take a WPA-style MVP award and move further into the land of “who’s performance makes the best story”, then count me completely out. I love storylines (although probably a little less than the next guy), but judging performance based on storylines is stupid. It’s like hiring Tom Cruise as your agent because he was good at it in Jerry Maguire. If there wasn’t an MVP award, I don’t think the Jimmy Rollins or Matt Holliday love-fest would have been muted.
As statboy as it sounds, I would consider “best player” as the guy you’d love to have for your Strat-o-Matic team, the guy who would help your team the most if you knew exactly how he’d play before the season started. That’s just one definition of best player, though. You may prefer something more true talent for other discussions.
[As an aside, VORP, my TVAR, and stuff like that definitely are not a measure of true talent. Jorge Posada’s getting tons of credit for a BABIP that he can’t sustain, for example. The best 2007 true talent player would be the one you’d most want on your team headed into 2008 based solely on 2007 performance. Pujols and ARod would be way up there, while I’m guessing people would give less thought to some other top players like Maggs (can he really hit .360 again?), Ryan Braun (can he keep that pace up for more than 400 PAs?), or Jimmy Rollins (he was more of a good storyline than a great player.)]
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:13 am
I think part of the debate about the MVP (and MGL’s strong stance) come from taking the name of the award too literally. Sure, it’s the “Most Valuable Player” award, but there are more criteria given by the BBWAA that you can use to select than simply running wild on interpreting “valuable”.
Also, very few people interpret the Cy and the ROY in the literal value sense, and so if you do so with the MVP, there is really no overall player counterpart to those awards.
Personally, for any of those awards, my standard is the player’s actual performance, with no regards to timing, but also no adjustments to try to put the player in a neutral context (run-based park factors don’t try to put him in a neutral context, they just place the value of each run on par with its win value). If the player had a high BABIP, I wouldn’t hold this against him (I might for a pitcher a little bit since there is an argument that the defense deserves some credit for it; there’s no one to share credit with on the offensive side). It seems like this puts my thinking on this pretty close to Sky’s.
Perhaps not so incidentally, Sky and I picked the same top four, but in a different order (I went Wright-Jones-Pujols-Utley).
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
10: Yes, I shouldn’t have said “true talent” as that would be regressed, age adjusted, etc. I guess context neutral is the better term.
Anyway, I can definitely see yours and Patriot’s stance, so maybe I should think about it some more. Or maybe I shouldn’t, because like Tango said, nobody will care in a week.