The official 2013 National League Most Valuable Player is Andrew McCutchen, who was terrific. From what anyone can tell, he’s a very deserving winner, but the voting still came with a few little controversies. For one, Paul Goldschmidt didn’t pick up a single first-place vote, and all season he was incredibly clutch. For two, a pair of first-place votes went to Yadier Molina, both of them coming out of St. Louis. One of those writers put Matt Carpenter second, and it’s easy to write that off as simple bias. If you’re the only people to vote for a guy, and it’s a guy on your hometown team, and everyone else votes for another guy, that’s going to be pretty conspicuous.

My first impression, though, was that, even if they followed the wrong process, they might well have stumbled upon the right answer. Or at least, a good answer. Those people in St. Louis see Molina more than anybody else, and Molina, more than anybody else, seems to have value that’s tricky to measure. Catchers are hard, and Molina might be the best one, and he’s a leader who has the pitching staff’s full respect. Pitchers don’t shake Molina off. They say he’s the heart and soul of the ballclub, and I’m open to the idea that a bunch of Molina’s real value is basically hidden in other numbers. But I wasn’t satisfied with just a belief.

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Rick Porcello was better in 2013 for a number of reasons. For one, the Detroit Tigers right-hander was a year older and wiser. Because he broke into the big leagues at a young age, it’s easy to forget he’s just 24. For four seasons, he had largely been learning on the job.

Another reason was the development of his breaking ball. The lack of an effective off-speed pitch had burdened the former first-round pick, especially against left-handed hitters. That changed this year when he put his slider in his back pocket and began featuring a much-improved curveball. The results were telling, as he lowered his ERA from 4.59 to 4.32, and his FIP from 3.91 to 3.53.

Porcello talked about the development of his curveball — including how it impacts his reliance on scouting reports — during the ALCS. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam answer a strong selection of listener emails on award voting, the BBWAA, defensive stats, Phillies analytics, lefty catchers, free agent compensation systems, and more.

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As expected, Miguel Cabrera just won the American League Most Valuable Player award, and he won it by a landslide. Compared to a year ago, Cabrera gained a first-place vote. Compared to a year ago, Trout lost a first-place vote. Things played out the same, precisely because things played out the same, and so no one’s shocked by the outcome. Everyone has had his or her own opinion, but last year set the precedent and there was no way this year things were going to flip. For some of you, it’s the right outcome. For others, it’s the wrong outcome. My belief is that it’s the wrong outcome, but right now I’m left considering three things — two facts, and one line of speculation.

One factual consideration: Trout and Cabrera were both absolutely amazing. Cabrera trailed off, but for understandable reasons. Trout didn’t play for a contender, for understandable reasons. Trout just posted the highest AL WAR of the past decade. Cabrera just posted the highest AL wRC+ of the past decade. In a few ways, both players are coming off seasons that were historically great, so as much as this announcement feels like one guy beating another, this vote decided between the best of the best. The right response isn’t to celebrate Cabrera only, or to put Trout down. It’s to count our blessings that these players are alive today and performing as they do. The voting recognized the best players in the AL, and you can appreciate more than one guy at a time.

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I wrote about my feelings on the MVP award earlier today, and I’d say at this point, I’d consider myself somewhat apathetic towards the actual result. People are going to define Most Valuable however they want, and in general, there’s little desire for a consistent, logical approach to coming up with an answer. For many, part of the appeal of the award is its ambiguity. I don’t really like ambiguity all that much, so that part of the process doesn’t appeal to me. And that’s okay. This award doesn’t have to appeal to me. I can sit at home and celebrate Mike Trout tonight whether anyone else is or not.

That said, before I bow out of the conversation entirely, I do want to ask one additional question of those who prefer their MVPs to come from winning teams: why are you simultaneously in favor of Mike Trout finishing second?

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Mark DeRosa announced his retirement Wednesday, after a 16-year career in which he played for eight teams, played six positions, hit exactly 100 home runs, and made approximately $29 million.

DeRosa was not a great player — he was worth 10.5 WAR in 16 years, basically all of it between 2006 and 2009 — but he was good enough to hang around for long enough to surprise Carson Cistulli, and one of the greatest Ivy Leaguers ever. He’s the kind of player who rarely gets written up when he retires. So I’m writing about him.
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Nine months ago, Marlon Byrd could not secure a major league deal from any team leading him to sign a minor league deal with an invite to camp with the New York Mets. Two days ago, he parlayed a 136 wRC+ into a guaranteed two-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. As Dave Cameron pointed out, Byrd reinvented himself in 2013 at age-35 by swapping contact for power. The result of of this change was a .220 ISO, which was both a career-high and the first time he eclipsed the .200 plateau for his isolated power. After seasons of a relatively firm baseline for Contact% and Z-Contact%, Byrd changed his ways and made himself more attractive on the free agent market. 30 clubs were not willing to guarantee him money as a high contact batter with a good batting average, but one was quick to give him a guaranteed contract after one season of a grip it and rip it approach.

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Today, the Baseball Writers Assocation of America — an organization to which I belong — will wrap up their awards announcements by handing out the MVPs for both the AL and NL. Andrew McCutchen is very likely to win the award for the NL, and Miguel Cabrera is going to get his second consecutive trophy for the AL. The only drama surrounds how much of a landslide each will win by; it’s probably not going to be close in either case.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t other worthy candidates. Clayton Kershaw had an excellent season, as did Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter, and Carlos Gomez, and you could make a case for any of those four. In the AL, obviously, there’s Mike Trout, who was the best player in baseball this year and would win this thing in a landslide if voters saw it as the Best Player award. But, as you’re going to hear numerous times today, this is not the Best Player award; it’s the Most Valuable Player award.

So, we’re going to sit through another day of explanations for why best and most valuable aren’t the same thing. To be honest, I have no real interest in those explanations, or in arguing about them, because the discussion is almost entirely removed from the game of baseball. Few of the people who cast their votes for Miguel Cabrera actually think he had a better year than Trout this season; they just believe they’re answering a question that deals with more than how a baseball player performed for his team over the last year.

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It was my initial intent to write something about Tuesday’s trade rumor that involved Domonic Brown and Jose Bautista. The rumor, presented straight-up, was absolutely fascinating for the implied processes and implications. But, two things: Firstly, Dave wrote a couple thousand words on the rumor, touching on a lot of what needed to be touched on. Secondly, the rumor was thoroughly discredited Wednesday. That’s not to say the teams haven’t had talks — which isn’t to say such a deal is impossible — but it’s pretty evident nothing’s going to happen soon. No sense writing more about something that’s purely hypothetical.

But something within Dave’s post grabbed my attention. Brown just had himself a breakout season at 25 years old. The way we think of these things means Brown has achieved a new level, and going forward he’s going to be an excellent hitter. Dave presented a few counter-examples — young players who had breakout seasons in 2012 before largely taking a step back. The suggestion is that breakout seasons might not mean what we think they mean. Dave’s sample size was woefully small, but I wanted to dig a little deeper. It was a point potentially most intriguing.

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