My darkhorse pick for AL MVP is Miguel Cabrera. Why? It’s a multi-fold argument, which, while making it less likely to happen, will make me look obscenely brilliant if it actually happens.
The Tigers, as a team, have more talent than their current record shows. They are bound to improve on their winning percentage during the last two months.
The White Sox pitching staff is performing over their heads and the Twins are about to crash and burn.
By 1 and 2, the Tigers have a reasonable chance of winning the AL Central and making the playoffs.
Miguel Cabrera has actually had a pretty good, but underrated, first two-thirds of the season. He’s already at a .298 AVG with 23 homeruns and 89 RBI. If he performs at typical Miggy levels the rest of the way, that could look more like .315/35/130 or better by the end of the year.
Justin Morneau won the 2006 MVP Award based on his triple crown stats and the fact that his breakout coincided with the Twins’ breakout on the way to winning the AL Central.
By 3, 4, and 5, Miguel Cabrera should win the AL MVP by running on Morneau’s 2006 platform. QED.
And yes, when Miggy wins the MVP, making me look prescient, I will still complain that Grady Sizemore got robbed.
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:
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
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:
This is the first part of a three-part series on Jorge Posada. Part I takes a look at how impressive his 2007 season was. Part II compares Posada’s season to other top performances by catchers through baseball history. Part III will be the downer, explaining why our expectations for 2008 should pretty much ignore 2007.
It’s next to impossible for a Yankee to be underrated, but that’s definitely the case with Jorge Posada’s 2007 season. Alex Rodriguez is the undisputed league MVP, but Jorge Posada is a top five candidate. Let’s play Rob Neyer’s favorite game: which anonymous batting line is more impressive?
Player AVG OBP SLG wOBA
Guy A .338 .426 .543 .407
Guy B .324 .403 .547 .371
Guy C .340 .405 .607 .394
Guy D .282 .411 .627 .421
You probably went with Guy D, who was Carlos Pena, and I’d agree — for now. Guy C is Matt Holliday, likely NL MVP, whose stats get a huge boost from playing in Coors (wOBA is park-adjusted, however.) Guy B is Vlad Guerrero, who had a very good, but overrated season. That leaves Posada as Guy A, sporting a spectacular OBP and very good power numbers.
I did leave two important pieces of information off that list, however. One is plate appearances, where Posada’s 589 are about a hundred short of other full-time players. That’s one reason he trails a bunch of guys in offensive runs above replacement:
But the other piece of missing information is defensive position. Jorge Posada’s a catcher, making his contribution more important compared to first basemen and corner outfielders. It’s much tougher to find decent catchers who pound the ball than it is to find decent first basemen. On the defensive spectrum and over a full season, catchers are worth 15-20 runs more than those weaker positions, and 25 runs more than DHs. Just imagine putting Pena or David Ortiz behind the plate. Yikes.
With a positional adjustment to offensive runs, the list looks more like this:
Ordonez, on the strength of his hitting, is still a full win above Posada. But Posada’s now in a big bunch for third place, and jumps ahead of Carlos Pena by a few runs.
The last piece of the puzzle is of course how well each player fields his position. Curtis Granderson and Ichiro Suzuki take large steps forward as good-to-excellent fielders. Magglio Ordonez, Grady Sizemore, and Carlos Pena stay where they are, while Vlad takes a small step backward.
Posada’s tough to gauge, as are all catchers. They really aren’t responsible for turning many batted balls into outs. Instead, catchers prevent passed balls, frame strikes, and help control the running game. Only that third factor is easily measurable and it’s difficult to separate out the contribution of the pitcher. Surely Posada is a league-average catcher (43 fans agree) and I’d be ok with giving him 5 runs above that.
In the final value standings, that leaves Posada fifth, behind ARod, Magglio, Ichiro, and Granderson — not necessarily in that order.
Therefore, yes, Posada was definitely in the top handful of AL position players in 2007. He got on base an absurd percentage of the time (3rd-best in the AL), hit for power, and played the toughest defensive position. While ARod was worth about 10 wins to the Yankees, Posada was worth between 7 and 8. Without Posada, the Yankees likely would have lost the Wild Card to Detroit. Yankee fans realize Jorge’s 2007 contributions were huge, but even the Yankee-haters should give him his due.
Part II will examine where Posada’s 2007 ranks all-time among seasons by catchers. Tease: in one regard, it was the best ever.
While almost everybody will admit that Coors is still a great place to hit, many people refuse to discount Matt Holliday’s performance this season even though he plays half his games there. The protests includes statements like these:
I don’t believe in “what-if” scenarios. I judge players on what actually happened.
Holliday also has to play road games in the extreme pitchers parks of the NL West: PETCO Park, AT&T Park, and Dodger Stadium.
Why don’t you penalize the Phillies’ hitters, too? Citizens’ Bank Park is also a hitters’ haven. And Houston. And Cincinnati.
Some of those are better than others. Let’s start from the bottom and work up, because I need to set up a few things before making my main point.
#3 - We absolutely should penalize other hitters who play in hitters’ parks (and reward hitters who play in pitchers’ parks). However, it’s important to have an accurate concept of which parks actually are hitters’ parks, and to what degree. Here’s a list of NL park factors averaged over the past three seasons. 100 is league average and a park factor of 110 means that 10% more runs are scored at that park. For AL park factors, click here.
Park Factor
COL 120
CIN 113
ARI 111
PHI 109
CHC 109
PIT 100
MIL 99
LAD 99
SFG 99
ATL 98
STL 97
HOU 97
FLA 95
NYM 92
WAS 90
SDP 81
Not surprisingly, Colorado is the best park for hitters. Philadelphia helps hitters, too, but only half as much as Colorado. Notice that Houston’s park factor is only 97 — Minute Maid Park increases homeruns, but actually reduces overall run scoring.
#2 - Are the other NL West parks actually hell for hitters? I see park factors of 111 (ARI), 99 (LAD), 99 (SFG), and 81 (SDP), for an average of 95. Los Angeles and San Francisco aren’t really pitchers’ parks these days, and Arizona is a pretty big hitters’ park. Of course, San Diego is as extreme as Colorado, but benefits pitchers.
We can create an overall adjustment factor for Rockies’ players that weights each park factor by how many games they played in each stadium. With the unbalanced schedule, Colorado plays 81 games at home, 9 or 10 games away at each NL West opponent, 3 or 4 games away against the rest of the NL teams, and 9 total away games against AL opponents. I used the Rockies’ schedule from Baseball-Reference.com and calculated the exact weighted Colorado adjustment for the 2007 season. It’s 109.6. That means Colorado’s games included a bump in scoring of 9.6% because of the parks they played in. (Rockies games actually had only 4.5% more scoring than average, meaning Colorado and their opponents had some combination of below-average offense and above-average pitching.)
#1 - Some people, actually I’d say most people, think that park factors are only used in what-if scenarios. For example, what if Wade Boggs didn’t get to hit doubles off the Green Monster or what if Babe Ruth didn’t have the short porch in right field? But that’s not the only thing park factors are used for.
In fact, for an MVP discussion, it doesn’t matter at all what a player “would have done” in a different environment. We want to know what Matt Holliday did in his actual environment. I think we can all agree on that.
What was Matt Holliday’s environment? One where runs were scored 9.6% more often than average. What does that mean? It means runs are less valuable. There are 162 games in a season (well, 163 sometimes). If more runs are scored, that means it take more runs, on average, to win each game. Contributing 100 runs in the Rockies environment helps win fewer games than contributing 100 runs in the Padres environment.
By neutralizing Holliday’s batting average from .340 to .318, we’re not saying that’s what he would have batted if he played for a different team. We’re just saying that batting .340 on the Rockies is as productive as batting .318 for another team. Creating 151 runs on the Rockies is as productive as creating 135 runs for another team.
I hope my point is clear. The “penalty” given to Matt Holliday and other Rockies hitters is not a “what-if” adjustment. It’s an adjustment necessary due to the run-scoring environment created by playing home games at Coors and road games at other divisional parks, other NL parks, and a few AL parks. Matt Holliday is a great hitter, but his raw stats appear more valuable than they actually are.
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.