Today, we’re writing up affirmative arguments for each of the three primary MVP candidates, and I get to make the case for Jacoby Ellsbury’s candidacy. On the surface, arguing for Ellsbury is something easy case to make – after all, he led the majors in WAR, and even though it is not a precise measure of value that should be taken as gospel, the guy with the best WAR in baseball is obviously a serious candidate for the award. That said, you don’t have to buy into WAR to see that Ellsbury was probably as good as anyone else who played the sport this year.

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Major League Baseball will announce the winner of the 2011 American League Most Valuable Player this afternoon. While sabermetric tools such as Wins Above Replacement are very helpful, and perhaps even necessary for sorting out which players have been the most valuable, they are not necessarily sufficient by themselves for deciding such issues. As I discussed in an earlier (no-longer-so-“official”) post on using WAR to help determine the MVP, WAR and its cousins should start conversations about the MVP, not end them. However, this post is less about the general framework and more about why I think, despite the presence of other viable candidates just as Jacoby Ellsbury and maybe Justin Verlander, Jose Bautista is my choice for the American League’s Most Valuable Player of 2011.

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The American League Most Valuable Player Award is going to be announced at 2:00 pm today, and there’s a pretty good chance that Justin Verlander is going to become just the 10th player to win both the Cy Young and MVP in the same year. Unfortunately, the reasons that Verlander is probably the favorite to win the award aren’t great – the two best position players both played for teams who failed to make the playoffs, and voters are historically preferential to players who came from teams who played in October. He’s also a stronger candidate to actually win the award because of his 24 victories, and it is too bad that pitcher wins are still hanging on to some influence.

However, you don’t have to buy into the traditional criteria for MVP voting to cast a ballot in favor of Justin Verlander. Even without some tortured logic about rewarding a player for the performance of his teammates, a strong case can be made for Verlander as the most valuable player in the American League in 2011.

Let’s start off with the elephant in the room: with how we calculate WAR here on FanGraphs, Verlander’s +7.0 season is pretty far behind both Jacoby Ellsbury (+9.4) and Jose Bautista (+8.3), so an argument for Verlander seems to require a rejection of FanGraphs WAR, right? I would suggest that it does not. We think WAR is a great tool that has helped push forward the understanding of the relative value of players with very different skills, but we’ve never suggested that it’s perfect or entirely comprehensive.

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The Cubs need to prioritize. As a struggling franchise, they need to significantly overhaul their roster and farm system. A possible trade chip, as Buster Olney wrote last Monday, is Matt Garza. This year was excellent for Garza; to highlight a few of his achievements, he posted career bests in WAR, FIP-, and xFIP-.

Much of his success can be traced to an improved strikeout rate. He struck out opposing batters 23.5% of the time, placing him right in between Roy Halladay and C.C. Sabathia for 12th among all qualified starters. In addition to an increased strikeout rate, we also know that he has been depending much more heavily on his off-speed and breaking stuff. Therefore we can attribute his great 2011 performance to his decreased usage of his fastball.

But is it that simple?

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As soon as Ryan Howard went down with a ruptured Achilles tendon to close out the National League Division Series, the Phillies were left with two clear options to replace him in the short-term. On one hand, they could pursue an above-average, starter-quality first baseman like Michael Cuddyer — a player who would require significant financial and time commitments. Or, the Phillies could rebuild with scraps — playing platoons on the cheap until Howard returns, perhaps as late as May or June.

Sunday night the Phillies opted for the latter, acquiring Ty Wigginton from the Phillies in exchange for cash or a player to be named later. Instead of paying Cuddyer multiple millions — possibly eight figures — over two to three years, Philadelphia will merely owe Wigginton $2 million for the next season as the team works through the early parts of 2012.

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Matt Antonelli is the Pride of Peabody, Mass.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Final (!) SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
3. Prospecting: John Sickels’ Top-20 List for Tampa Bay

Assorted Headlines
All the nerd that’s fit to print.

Orioles Sign Infielder Antonelli
The Orioles, fronted by new GM Dan Duquette, have signed infielder Matt Antonelli, MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli reports. It has come to my attention that Mike Axisa will question the wisdom of this deal later today in these very pages. Do not be swayed by his siren song! Matt Antonelli is a saint of a ballplayer and human! In only slightly related news, Antonelli was a guest on FanGraphs Audio this spring.

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Mediocre middle infielders have dominated free agency in the early going. Mark Ellis, Clint Barmes and Jamey Carroll have each signed relatively lucrative multi-year contracts at a time when most teams seek bigger impact players. The run on these defense-first, lighter-hitting infielders means that some teams will need to get creative to fill holes at shortstop or second base.

These teams can’t simply wait until mid-January and ink Barmes to a reasonable deal. They may need to make a trade. While shortstopgap free agents like Barmes and Rafael Furcal were expected to get some attention from all the teams shying away from Jimmy Rollins and Jose Reyes, one name seldom discussed is Jason Bartlett.

Bartlett would require a trade with the San Diego Padres, but it’s entirely possible that his very affordable salary, likely reasonable cost to acquire, and minimal commitment makes him the perfect stopgap solution. This is especially true when comparing Bartlett with Furcal, who very well may sign a deal in between Barmes/Ellis/Carroll and Rollins.

With the news that the Padres are considering trading him and Orlando Hudson, it’s worthwhile to explore who might have interest and what Bartlett brings to the table. And no, that isn’t the same table on which free agents are supposedly leaving money.

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Minnesota Twins interim GM Terry Ryan fired a second free agency salvo Friday as the club inked C-1B-RF Ryan Doumit to a one-year, $3 million deal. The deal, which is pending a physical scheduled for next week per Pioneer Press Twins reporter John Shipley, also includes unspecified performance-based incentives. Jerry Crasnick had tweeted earlier Friday that the former Pittsburgh Pirate was choosing between two teams, with the Seattle Mariners apparently drawing the short straw in the Doumit derby.

Since taking over the helm from Bill Smith just over a week ago, TR (too many Ryans to keep straight here) has been more active on the free agent market than in the past, as he officially inked infielder Jamey Carroll on Wednesday and had been linked to Doumit and Josh Willingham – both Matt Sosnick clients – as well a number of other free agents. The scaled-back budget doesn’t appear to be much of a deterrence to TR; after all, if expenditures settle in near the $100 million mark, that would still be nearly $30 million more than he ever had to work with during his first go-round with the club.

It’s an encouraging development for fans of a team desperate for good news following arguably the worst season in Twins history.

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To everyone’s surprise, the newly christened Miami Marlins have been one of the hottest teams on the free agent market so far. They’re interested in nearly every high profile free agent, and it seems likely that they’ll increase their payroll significantly this offseason and bring in at least one big name. Recent rumors have suggested that they aren’t actually considered likely suitors for Albert Pujols, and they may not have offered Jose Reyes $90 million…but still, they are going to land someone this offseason. After this start to the offseason, they need to or else risk their fanbase turning fickle on them again.

When evaluating new acquisitions, one of the most important — yet often overlooked — parts of projecting performance is park effects. Every ballpark plays slightly differently, and players can see big changes in their year-to-year performance based on where they play their home games. Is a player spending half his games in hitter friendly Arlington, or are they in the pitchers haven of PETCO Park? To the vast majority of you out there, this is old news.

But here’s where things get interesting: the Marlins are opening their new stadium next season, and we have no idea how it will perform. It could be a pitcher’s park, could be a hitter’s park — who knows? This added uncertainty makes evaluating their (potential) free agent acquisitions even more difficult. Why bother paying large money for a right-handed slugger if your stadium suppresses right-handed power considerably? It’s tough to tailor your team to your park if you don’t know how your park will perform.

Even if we don’t know exactly how the Marlins’ new stadium will perform, though, we can make some educated guesses. To the Bat Cave!

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People have been complaining about the length of ballgames for years. While batters stepping out of the box presents its own irritations, one thing that can really get a crowd angry is excessive throwing to first base to hold the runner or pick him off. Years ago, Bill James (and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one) proposed a solution to this “problem,” and I am curious to see what people think today.

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