skyking162

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

Popularity: 19% [?]

The AL MVP will be announced later today, so it seems like a good time to present my MVP ballot. Yes, I’ve done this before, but I found a small error in my calculations and I’ve incorporated an additional set of fielding data.

That’s not to say the rankings are now perfect. They definitely aren’t. I could continue to tweak constants such as positional adjustments. I may find another small computational error. Or there may be sweeping improvements in defensive rankings (Justin, for one, has incorporated the Fans Scouting Report alongside the two metrics I averaged together).

With all that room for improvement, why do I bother to give “my” numbers any merit? Because they’re still better than most of the stuff out there. VORP has serious flaws with positional adjustments and replacement level. BPro’s fielding metric is awful. And Win Shares, well, I’m shocked anyone still pays them any attention. Those are just a few examples.

Regarding whether they’re “my” numbers or not, they’re not. I’m just following methods laid out by other people, mostly Patriot and Tangotiger. I’ll eventually get around to explaining the methodology, but it’s pretty similar to what Justin explains thoroughly in his series on valuation.

One caveat I will throw out there is that any set of values, including these, isn’t as precise as you’d desire. I’m displaying numbers rounded to the nearest run, but any difference under five runs is not meaningful. It would take a difference of ten runs for me to feel pretty confident that one player was more valuable than another, and there are still going to be times when larger differences are lying.

Ok, on to the 2007 AL MVP ballot. Only position players are included, because I don’t yet have a good system for pitchers. My guess is that CC Sabathia would fall somewhere between fifth and eighth. 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 AL MVP Ballot

10 - Victor Martinez (48 RAR 9 POS 0 FAA 58 TVAR)
VMart’s the first of two catchers to make the top ten. He should thank Eric Wedge for letting him play first base on his “days off”.

9 - Grady Sizemore (60 RAR 7 POS -3 FAA 63 TVAR)
Some people think his defense is a lot better than this. If so, he belongs in the top five.

8 - Vlad Guerrero (75 RAR -5 POS -6 FAA 64 TVAR)
Talk about an overhyped MVP candidate. I think Vlad’s support just comes from the fact that he’s the best player on the Angels, who were a playoff team. Maybe his past ten years of domination come into play, too.

7 - David Ortiz (81 RAR -13 POS -1 FAA 67 TVAR)
Yes, he’s a monster offensively. He would also be a monster defensively, which is why the positional penalty for DHs is so high. That being said, Big Papi’s 2007 season is being underrated by many people, which is too bad.

6 - Jorge Posada (62 RAR 8 POS -2 FAA 68 TVAR)
Again, I probably should be giving catchers a bit more of a positional bonus, but a few runs in these rankings isn’t very significant.

5 - Carlos Pena (75 RAR -8 POS 3 FAA 70 TVAR)
Pena’s definitely the biggest surprise on the ballot. In the past couple years he’s been released by the Tigers, Yankees, and Red Sox. You think any of those teams aren’t kicking themselves?

4 - Ichiro Suzuki (59 RAR 6 POS 13 FAA 79 TVAR)
Some people claim Ichiro’s overrated as a hitter and some people claim he’s a legit MVP candidate. They’re all right.

3 - Magglio Ordonez (86 RAR -4 POS 3 FAA 84 TVAR)
He’s ARod’s strongest competition with the bat, but it’s just not close enough. That’s not to say we shouldn’t also be celebrating Maggs’ season.

2 - Curtis Granderson (65 RAR 6 POS 21 FAA 92 TVAR)
He had a very good offensive year, plays center field, and plays center field extremely well. Granderson’s the ideal all-around player, unless you include the ability to hit lefties in the discussion.

1 - Alex Rogriguez (100 RAR -1 POS -2 FAA 97 TVAR)
ARod should definitely be an unanimous MVP pick. Sure, Granderson’s close, but if you think anyone’s going to put ARod second in favor of him, you’re crazy. Any non-ARod votes will be for Ordonez or perhaps David Ortiz. And both of those choices are even more absurd.

Here’s the rest of the top twenty-five, with ties:

Player/TM		RAR	POS	FAA	TVAR
Polanco,PlacidoDET	46	0	6	52
Roberts,BrianBAL	46	0	2	48
Rios,AlexITOR		43	-4	5	44
Ellis,MarkOAK		23	0	20	42
Cano,RobinsonNYA	34	0	7	42
Guillen,CarlosDET	43	3	-4	41
Thome,JimCHA		51	-11	0	40
Hunter,ToriiMIN		36	6	-3	40
Swisher,NickTOAK	41	-2	-1	38
Figgins,ChoneLAA	40	-1	-1	38
Crawford,CarlTB		34	-5	8	37
Kotchman,CaseyLAA	31	-7	13	37
Cust,JackOAK		43	-3	-4	36
Upton,B.J.TB		38	3	-6	35
Lowell,MikeBOS		37	-1	-1	35
Kinsler,IanMTEX		29	0	6	35
Matsui,HidekiNYA	44	-5	-5	35
Mauer,JoeMIN		28	7	0	35

Want to peruse the top twenty-five players at every position? Go for it:
1B | 2B | SS | 3B | DH | CA | LF | CF | RF

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you don’t think Troy Tulowitzky was better than Ryan Braun in 2007, then you don’t think Ozzie Smith is a Hall of Famer.

Ok, that’s a little extreme, but as I’ve said before, Tulo’s edge in fielding value far outweighs Braun’s advantage on offense. In fact, Ryan Braun wouldn’t have even appeared on my ballot, which only goes three deep for some reason.

NL Rookie         TVAR
Troy Tulowitzky    50
Hunter Pence       35
Tim Lincecum       30ish?
Chris B. Young     25
Kevin Kouzmanoff   25
Josh Hamilton      25
Ryan Braun         25

But enough of that (except to point out that Steve Phillips picked Braun while Rob Neyer picked Tulo.)

There’s an even bigger travesty in the Rookie of the Year voting over in the AL. Yes, Dustin Pedroia is a fine choice, but second place was ridiculous, unless Delmon Young and Jeremy Guthrie recently swapped names. Let’s take a look at Delmon Young first.

Rookie         RBI   Runs   AVG    OBP   SLG   RAR   FAA   TVAR
Delmon Young    94    65   .288   .316  .408    4    -10   -10

Obviously the voters looked at the RBIs and batting average and stopped there. But the on-base and slugging percentages are both below average and Young was a poor fielder. Overall, he was worse than replacement level, about on par with Nick Punto. If only Punto was a rookie…

Once we remove Young from second place, we need to move Daisuke up there and slide Guthrie into third, banishing Bannister to wherever we put Young. Here are the numbers for the three notable AL rookie starters:

AL Rookie Starter    IP   ERA   K/9  BB/9  HR/9  BABIP   FIP  xFIP
Daisuke Matsuzaka   205  4.40   8.9   3.5  1.11  .299   4.35  4.42
Brian Bannister     165  3.87   4.4   2.5   .85  .261   4.52  5.14
Jeremy Guthrie      175  3.70   6.6   2.5  1.23  .270   4.52  4.41

How Bannister received votes while Guthrie didn’t, I have no idea Maybe it’s because of their win totals, which I refuse to post. Guthrie had a better ERA and more innings pitched. If you look at their peripherals, summarized by FIP (fielding-independent ERA), they’re all pretty even. Both Guthrie and Bannister had lots of help from their fielders, according to BABIP.

Bannister’s main strength was preventing homeruns, which was more fluke than skill according to xFIP, which uses flyball percentage to control for homerun rate. Pitchers don’t really control what percentage of outfield flyballs become homeruns and Bannister was pretty lucky in that department. If the Royals were smart, they’d trade him now — do you think there’s any market for a young pitcher who’s showed 3.87 ERA potential?

Guthrie and Matsuzaka had similar adjusted ERAs, but Daisuke threw 30 more innings. That’s pretty significant, and one of the reasons CC Sabathia deserves the Cy Young Award over Beckett and Bedard. To me, Daisuke was clearly the best rookie pitcher, with Guthrie a step behind. If you assume replacement level starters have a 5.50 ERA, Daisuke was one run better than replacement per 9 innings, or about 23 runs total. That’s almost good enough to challenge Pedroia’s 28 runs above replacement.

In summary:
Tulo, good. Braun, decent.
Pedroia, good. Young, bad.
Guthrie, decent, Bannister, bad.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Do you remember your first time on the internet (Prodigy, anyone?) Do you remember your first instant messenger handle? Do you remember the first Baseball Writers Association of America website? If not, that’s ok — it’s still up and running.

Seriously, is the BBWAA actively trying to appear technologically ignorant? Is their obnoxious website a big “screw you” to anyone not reading information printed on paper?

Ok, that’s enough belittling of writers who will never know that I’m belittling them. I’m off to play King’s Quest over my 8K modem.

Popularity: 12% [?]