As the battle rages on between Jacoby Ellsbury, Jose Bautista and Curtis Granderson, or Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Joey Votto, I felt it was necessary to take a peek at a few players who have flown under the radar in their respective league’s MVP balloting — at least on the basis of how much press they’ve received.

Ian Kinsler – Texas Rangers 2B

Kinsler has been rock-solid at the keystone for a Rangers club that has had a bit more trouble putting away the American League West than most expected. Nonetheless, with a pair of former studs having down seasons – namely, Chase Utley and Dan Uggla – Kinsler has stepped in to join Dustin Pedroia at the top of the ranks of the WAR leaderboard, checking in at 6.7 with just a handful of games remaining. In terms of value to the team, Kinsler certainly has it, as he’s played in all but six of his club’s games, and leads the league in plate appearances. This has been pretty noteworthy, considering Adrian Beltre, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Hamilton have each missed 30-plus games for various reasons for the Rangers.

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Chris Carpenter signed a two-year $21-million extension with the Cardinals this week. That sounds better until you realize that the team already had an option on Carpenter worth $15 million. Somehow they managed to finagle an extra cheap year out of their ace for another $6 million. How much might the oft-injured pitcher have made on the open market?

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Not long after Mike Cameron hinted at retirement, the Marlins gave him his walking papers, letting him begin his post-baseball life a few weeks early. At 38-years-old, this is probably the end of the line for Cameron, who has spent most of his career as one of the game’s most consistently underrated players. It’s time he got his due.

He’s not going to make the Hall Of Fame. He probably won’t even get more than a handful of votes, and he’ll be off the ballot after his first year of eligibility. But if there was a Hall Of Very Good, Cameron would a charter member. While he’s probably not going to remembered as fondly, he was basically this generation’s Devon White.

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“You never know where help will come from — until you look for it.”

— Tobias Funkë, Arrested Development

News broke last night that Florida police arrested Manny Ramirez on battery charges concerning his wife. Just a few months ago, Ramirez was preparing for another MLB season and had a gold-plated opportunity for redemption.

Since then, though, the former Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox slugger has journeyed down a divergent path from his most recent team, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Rewind to the beginning of the season: The Rays management willingly admits 2011 would be a “reloading” year — which is to say the team anticipated a good, but not good-enough performance.

Sure, they had the pitching — what with David Price, James Shields and three young and above-average starters in Jeremy Hellickson, Wade Davis and Jeff Niemann — and they had the defenders — again boasting some of the league’s most valuable fielders in Evan Longoria, Ben Zobrist, and B.J. Upton — but they also had holes aplenty.

For one, the Rays lacked a legitimate DH and a proven first baseman. In hopes of putting power in the DH spot and getting the team a few lucky bounces away from the playoffs, they signed Manny Ramirez to a $2M, 1-year contract — deemed by many as a triumph of Friedmanonics — and Johnny Damon to a $7M $5.25M (excluding incentives), 1-year deal. But even with these additions, the Rays had little chance to out-talent the Red Sox and Yankees in 2011.

The story, as any good story goes, proved quite unpredictable.
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Matt Wieters, and at least eight other people, play(s) for the Baltimore team.

Toronto (6) at Boston (10) | 19:10 ET
Regarding the Situation Here
The situation here is that, with Tampa Bay’s 5-2 victory over Baltimore on Monday night, the Red Sox are now only three games ahead of the Rays in the wild-card race — a fact which, much like a bee or a cell phone near a pair of speakers, is creating buzz.

Regarding the Situation Here, Part II
Another part of the situation here is that elder statesman — and actual elder — Tim Wakefield has made seven fruitless starts in pursuit of his 200th win.

Regarding the Situation Here, Part III
Some more of the situation is that WAR leaders — and probably AL MVP frontrunners — Jacoby Ellsbury (8.2) and Jose Bautista (7.8) are both playing in this game.

Regarding the Situation Here, Part IV
The last part of the situation is how Brett Lawrie — slashing .304/.383/.647 (188 wRC+), with a totally sustainable .316 BABIP over the last month — and Brandon Morrow are playing in this game, too.

Regarding Parts No. II and III, Above
Those aren’t actually so compelling for the author.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Red Sox Television.

Two Other Games
Tampa Bay (7) at Baltimore (2) | 19:05 ET
David Price of the Wild Card-contending Tampa Bay Rays will pitch against Matt Wieters and whomever else on the Orioles can get away for three hours.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Rays Television.

Los Angeles Americans (5) at Oakland (1) | 22:05 ET
As mentioned in yesterday’s rapture-inducing edition of the Leaderboards of Pleasure, Jerome Williams (pitching tonight) leads all pitchers with 20-plus innings as a starter in swinging-strike percentage, at 14.9%.

MLB.TV Audio Feed: Hummina Hummina?

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The Chicago White Sox are facing some tough decisions this off-season. Trouble is, those decisions have very little to do with their players. Due to the daily drama that surrounds this team — specifically between Manager Ozzie Guillen and General Manager Kenny Williams — rumors have surfaced that the White Sox front office might look drastically different come the start of the 2012 season. On top of potentially losing Williams and Guillen, Assistant General Manager Rick Hahn is thought to be one of the leading GM candidates this off-season. There’s no doubt that Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf faces some tough decisions this off-season — and that’s before he even begins to think about his 25-man roster.
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Let the Leaderboards of Pleasure get all up in your nucleus accumbens.

Much like a perfectly orange and barely clothed Jim Palmer circa 1981, this edition of the Leaderboards of Pleasure wants nothing more than to hold you tight, tell you everything will be okay, and flood your brain with the neurotransmitter dopamine.

In our totally scientific and always rigorous search for pleasure, today we find a number of familiar faces, but also some new ones, too.

New ones like:

• Alejandro De Aza, who, after just 39 games and 116 plate appearances, already finds himself fourth among White Sock position players in WAR (and still fifth, if we discount his defensive contributions).

• Mike Trout, whose inclusion, so far as surprises go, isn’t one (i.e. a surprise).

• Jerome Williams, who, at 14.9%, has the highest swinging-strike rate (by a large-ish margin) of any pitcher with 20-plus innings as a starter.

Soak in the pleasure, ladies and gentlemen. (But mostly gentlemen, I’m guessing.)

1. Team NERD Leaderboard
2. Underrated Player Leaderboard
3. Player NERD Leaderboard
4. Pitcher NERD Leaderboard

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