IBA Ballot: MVP

Presented below is my ballot (and some justification) for one of the categories in the Internet Baseball Awards hosted at Baseball Prospectus. I’m just one person, and the whole point of having a vote like the IBA is to get a wide variety of (intelligent) perspectives, and so I will not feel in the list bit slighted if you don’t give a flip about this.

In the American League, it was a pretty underwhelming years for position players, at least as far as MVP candidacies go. This results in a large number of candidates but no real standouts. Here is a chart-form look at some of the top candidates. RAA and RAR are against an average hitter at the position, so the column “Def” is estimated of runs saved above average at the position, based on Justin’s stats:

NAME                           RAA                RAR                Def  
Rodriguez                     40                    59                    7  
Sizemore                      34                    58                    9  
Pedroia                       34                    58                    9  
Mauer                         38                    54                    N/A  
Hamilton                      31                    53                    0  
Roberts                        31                   51                      6 
Kinsler                          34                    50                    -6 
Markakis                     26                    50                    -4  
Youkilis                     21                    44                    4  
Granderson             22                    43                    3  
Morneau                  15                    41                    -9

One thing to note is that in choosing my order, I will not treat the fielding stats as 100% equally valuable to hitting; they are pretty clearly less reliable. Also, the approach of comparing to the average hitter can be argued to favor second baseman and shortchange center fielders, which is something to keep in mind. Also, ARod’s “clutch” numbers are dreadful--while I don’t place much weight on this, it’s something that can swing my opinion in the case of a virtual tie.

As a result of all that, I would go with Joe Mauer (who does well fielding, +7 according to Chone’s estimates, although they don’t account for the quality of the pitching staff) in a close race over Sizemore and Pedroia. However, the most generous possible final RAR for Sizemore (giving him the 58 runs for hitting, 9 for fielding, and 5 more to correct for undervaluing center fielders) leaves him at +73; for Mauer, +54 RAR +7 fielding + an indeterminate amount for being a catcher…leave both the pitching duo of Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay.

I usually try to avoid giving my MVP support to a pitcher if there is a very small margin. This is not out of any bias against pitchers being the MVP, but because I am more confident in the sabermetric evaluation of hitters. No fielding or bullpen support to worry about, less nagging questions about “hit luck” and peripherals, etc. But here there is a clear demarcation between the two pitchers and everyone else, and I have to respect that. So this is how I see it:

1) SP Cliff Lee, CLE

2) SP Roy Halladay, TOR

3) C Joe Mauer, MIN

4) CF Grady Sizemore, CLE

5) 2B Dustin Pedroia, BOS

6) 3B Alex Rodriguez, NYA

7) SP Jon Lester, BOS

8) 2B Brian Roberts, BAL

9) CF Josh Hamilton, TEX

10) RF Nick Markakis, BAL

If any of the nimrod crowd at BTF (note that I consider this a subset of the BTF commentariat, not the whole) ever see this, I’m sure they will complain about how there are few guys from the left side of the defensive spectrum and attribute this to VORP and its treatment of DHs. The fact of the matter is, the left side of the defensive spectrum players in the AL just aren’t that good. Here are the leaders in Hitting RAR (not accounting for position) in order by position, without their identities:

5, 8, 9, D, 8, D, 3

I listed seven because I gave three spots on the ballot to pitchers (merit-based; I don’t have a three pitcher quota or anything)--thus there are seven position player spots up for grabs. It should stand to reason that if the best a first baseman can do is seventh, without considering defensive value at all, they are not going to fare very well when you do consider it. The third baseman, the two center fielders, and the right fielder all make my ballot. The two DHs are a guy who played for a bad team (Aubrey Huff, BAL) and a guy who played only 126 games, but was extremely productive when in the lineup (Milton Bradley). In fairness to them, they each played a fair amount in the field, but are considered 100% DH because of the single position adjustment used here (Huff played 24 games at first and 33 at third, Bradley 20 in the outfield corners).

So one could certainly argue that one or both are worthy of a ballot spot--but who are you going to replace? Are you going to argue that Huff was more valuable than his two Oriole teammates who played the field all the time, and also hit well? Are you going to argue that Bradley is more valuable than Hamilton, who could have very easily been reversed in roles with Bradley had Texas felt that would make them a better team? You can, but I’d have a hard time buying it.

In the National League, there is a runaway winner. Albert Pujols led players with 300 or more PA in SLG, RC, RG, and all four of the “above baseline” categories I track. He was second in BA, OBA, and secondary average. He did all this while fielding well (albeit at first base) and helping his team stay in contention all year when many (including myself) thought they’d be bad. And while it was arguably his best season (I think I’d hold out for 2003), he didn’t do anything that was way out of line with his track record.

I realize that you, as an intelligent baseball analyst, realized all that and didn’t need a lecture. But as an intelligent baseball analyst, you probably don’t care much about my MVP preferences in any case.

For the rest of the ballot, Hanley Ramirez’ seemingly improved fielding makes him a clear #2--even if you don’t believe he’s +7 out there as Jin’s numbers do, there would have to be around a dozen run error in that estimate to make me place David Wright or Chipper Jones ahead of him (that’s not to say that there couldn’t be a dozen run error, but I’ll bet against it).

Wright and Jones were #1/#2 on my 2007 ballot, but they will be #4/#3 this year. Wright’s RAR edge over Jones is razor-thin despite having nearly 200 more PA, and the zone data has Jones ahead by ten runs in the field. I find that hard to believe, but I was learning towards Jones anyway. Again, you can’t go wrong with either of them.

Behind them, I slip the top two pitchers in, then go with Berkman on the basis of trusting batting stats, although Beltran and Utley, on the strength of +10 performances in the field, could very well be ahead of them. Jose Reyes rounds out my ballot; Justin has him at -6 in the field, and there are number of guys who you could also make a case for (Giles, Holliday, Ludwick, and McCann among them).

1) 1B Albert Pujols, STL

2) SS Hanley Ramirez, FLA

3) 3B Chipper Jones, ATL

4) 3B David Wright, NYN

5) SP Tim Lincecum, SF

6) SP Johan Santana, NYN

7) 1B Lance Berkman, HOU

8) CF Carlos Beltran, NYN

9) 2B Chase Utley, PHI

10) SS Jose Reyes, NYN

Four Mets in the top ten will rub some folks the wrong way, but I’m hardly the first to observe that New York is a team with several stars and a lot of mediocre filler around them. It is a testament to Wright, Santana, Beltran, and Reyes that they came as close as they did.

Finally, I apologize again for the terrible formatting. Blogger has made it damned near impossible to copy and paste from Word while maintaining a readable output. The "Meanderings" post looked awful and this one may be worse.