Historically speaking, pitchers don’t win MVP awards — or don’t win them often, at least. There are exceptions to the rule, but the honor historically has been reserved for a league’s top position player. The logic among voters generally follows a couple recognizable lines of reasoning. Pitchers don’t play every day, some voters argue. They have the Cy Young all to themselves, say others. Whatever the justification, the record reveals a preference for position players over pitchers. Consider: since reliever Dennis Eckersley won the American League MVP in 1992, only Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander have been recognized as their respective league’s most valuable player.

It’s possible that some voters aren’t using entirely sound logic to arrive at their conclusions. Even if they’re employing the wrong process, however, they’re still usually arriving at the correct result: pitchers simply aren’t the best players in their leagues all that often. Position players make an impact at the plate and on defense. They just have more opportunities to create value. Their roles give them a competitive advantage.

Or, they usually provide a competitive advantage. This season, however, that hasn’t been the case. This season, the best player in the National League is likely a pitcher. While a lot of obstacles stand between Jacob deGrom and an MVP award, he deserves consideration — and there’s a really good argument he deserves to win.

Before we get to the more compelling arguments in favor of deGrom’s MVP candidacy, it makes sense to entertain the less compelling ones, too. First among them is the Mets, who have been poor this year. While voters are explicitly told that the MVP needn’t come from a playoff team, voters have typically evaluated a player’s performance in the context of his team’s performance, the logic presumably being that the player in question has been an asset in the most important situations. While the Mets are heading for a high draft pick now, it would be unfair to say that deGrom hasn’t been pitching in meaningful games. Thanks to their strong start, the Mets’ postseason hopes were remained alive into mid-June. Even if you wanted to assess deGrom some sort of penalty for playing for a bad team — let’s say you discount his second-half WAR by 50% — he would still lead the National League by that measure. It’s also worth noting that deGrom leads all National League pitchers in win probability added. In the games he’s pitched, in other words, he has been incredibly helpful to the cause of potentially winning a game, even if the end result has been disappointing.

Ultimately, there will be voters who are dogmatic in their views on which players are eligible for the MVP award. To those who contend, for example, that pitchers oughtn’t win it or that it should go to a member of a playoff team, I have little to say other than the rules and ballot history suggest otherwise. For those who are prepared to entertain the possibility of such a thing, however, then Jacob deGrom has a really good case.

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Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Jerry Blevins, Taylor Guerrieri, and Lance McCullers Jr. — on how they learned and/or developed their curveballs.

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Jerry Blevins, Mets

“The story starts as a kid. You start learning about curveballs, and the reason mine is big and slow is because I wanted to visualize it. A lot of those smaller breaking balls you don’t really see from the perspective of a pitcher. I wanted to see the big break. That’s why mine is how it is.

“Did anyone ever try to change that? All the time. Every step of the way, coming through the minor leagues. Even in high school and little league. They were always telling me, ‘Look, you need something tighter.’ I always fought against that, and I think it’s done me well.

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New York Mets third baseman David Wright announced his retirement, effective at the end of the 2018 season, at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. Wright’s been trying to mount a comeback for a few years now, following a 2015 diagnosis of spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spine that puts pressure on the nerves. The condition is degenerative and, in the four seasons since the start of that 2015 campaign, Wright has managed to appear in only 75 games with the Mets. He was hoping to make one last attempt to resume his career, working with the St. Lucie Mets for most of August before a couple of tuneup games with Triple-A Las Vegas, but that time in the minors appears merely to have confirmed the challenges that a major-league role would have presented to him.

Finishing off my 30s gave me a perspective on chronic injuries that I didn’t have 20 years ago. I am decidedly not a professional athlete. That said, I’ve observed as my own random aches and pains have multiplied over the last decade. I assume that, for a professional athlete — with much higher physical standards to maintain and much more day-to-day activity than a doughy sportswriter — it’s much worse. There are those who will say, “Don’t worry. He has a $100 million. He’ll be OK!” Certainly that was one view of Prince Fielder’s own premature retirement. (That was another tear-jerker of a press conference.) And, in one sense, it’s not incorrect: David Wright is free from worrying about the day-to-day costs of living. But he’s also someone who’s entire adult life has been dedicated to a particular endeavor (baseball) and who’s now forced to contend with the fact that his ability to participate in that endeavor has been cut short by five or so years. Hearing Wright say that “physically, the way I feel right now and everything the doctors have told me, there’s not going to be any improvement” was tough to watch for any fan of Wright or any fan of baseball.

Wright’s major-league career isn’t quite over, though: the Mets will activate him to start at third base on September 29th against the Marlins. I like when teams have the ability to do this kind of thing, and I was personally disappointed when the Yankees didn’t play A-Rod at shortstop for the final inning of his career. And playing one last game seems a lot more satisfying than signing a one-day contract, as players sometimes do with clubs that have had particular relevance to their careers.

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This has been an exciting year for rookie performances. Juan Soto has looked like the best teenage hitter in history, Ronald Acuna has helped lead the Braves to a (surprising) lead in the NL East, and Shohei Ohtani has short-circuited our understanding of player value with his two-way achievements. Rookies have always been a key component to baseball’s excitement, and this year’s crop is no exception.

Now, quick: what player leads rookies in second-half WAR? If you guessed Acuna, congrats! Acuna has caught fire, putting up a 190 wRC+ and 3.4 WAR since the break — second-best in baseball behind Matt Chapman’s 3.7 mark during that timeframe.

Let’s continue, though. Who’s second amongst rookies since the break? Soto? Sorry, no. Ohtani? Nope, not even after accounting for his contributions on all sides of the ball. It’s not the workman-like Brian Anderson, nor is it defensive wizard Harrison Bader. No, second among rookies in WAR during the second half is New York Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil. For some, perhaps that makes sense. For many, though, the likely response is, “Who?”

That’s understandable. Unless you’ve watched a Mets game since July 24th — and let’s be honest, why would you if you lived outside the New York MSA? — you’ve probably not heard of McNeil. Even if you were a prospect hound, McNeil could have evaded your eye. He didn’t appear on prospect lists for the Mets here at FanGraphs, at Minor League Ball, or Baseball Prospectus. At FanGraphs, only the enigmatic Carson Cistulli mentioned McNeil in an early July edition of the Fringe Five.*

*Since this article came out, it has come to my attention that several articles focused on or mentioning Jeff McNeil have been written by several authors. Among them include the Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Prospectus Mets prospect writers Jarrett Seidler (May 2018), Jeff Paternostro, and Alex Rosen (May 2018). Jeff’s coverage of McNeil in particular goes back as far as McNeil’s second season in 2014. This oversight was completely accidental on my part and not meant to disregard or disparage their work or the work of anyone else who has written about McNeil in the past

For a Mets fanbase that has observed the front office regularly block prospects in favor of flawed veterans — at least they finally freed outfielder Brandon Nimmo — it has to be mildly gratifying to see a young player getting reps in the waning days of the season. McNeil is not only second in WAR amongst rookies in the second half, he is 13th among all hitters by the measure.

Given McNeil’s lack of obvious tools, there’s still reason to doubt that he can put together a substantive major-league career, let alone sustain the pace he’s established since July. Despite these concerns, however, it’s encouraging that the Mets have continued to give McNeil — and Amed Rosario and Nimmo — sufficient playing time to earn a place on the big-league club.

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The other day, I was reading something written by Tom Verducci over at Sports Illustrated. Verducci was ultimately making an argument about Jacob deGrom and his Cy Young candidacy, but on the way there, he talked about what’s apparently been dubbed the Mystery of Flushing. The mystery concerns why the Mets can’t hit at home. More specifically, it’s about why the Mets’ team BABIP consistently suffers at home. Citi Field has been modified multiple times, but it was modified most dramatically before the 2012 regular season. Since 2012, the Mets rank last in the majors in runs scored at home. They rank seventh in runs scored on the road. And, since 2012, the Mets rank last in the majors in BABIP at home. They rank third in BABIP on the road. There’s an existing BABIP gap of 30 points. This is spanning the better part of a decade. That’s big, and that’s weird. It’s worthy of some kind of investigation.

Verducci’s article, to be clear, was missing something. He analyzed the Mets’ hitters, but he didn’t analyze the Mets’ pitchers. Since 2012, they’ve allowed the eighth-fewest runs at home. They’re in 17th in runs allowed on the road. And, since 2012, they’re 12th in BABIP allowed at home. They’re 28th in BABIP allowed on the road. Run scoring in general is harder at Citi Field. Turning batted balls into hits in general is harder at Citi Field. Mets hitters are hurt, and Mets pitchers get to benefit. But a question remains: why? Why is Citi Field so strange?

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This year’s National League Cy Young race invites multiple interesting questions about how best to evaluate pitching performance. Jacob deGrom, for example, is the league’s leader in ERA by a healthy amount; however, he’s also recorded only as many wins as reliever Jeremy Jeffress. Max Scherzer is having another great season, but his .255 BABIP compels one to consider whether his 2.31 ERA is the product of luck or defense (although the Nationals have recorded below-average defensive numbers both by UZR and DRS). Aaron Nola, meanwhile, has recorded a similarly low BABIP even as Philadelphia has produced NL-worst figures both by UZR and DRS. Finally, while the race has been viewed as a three-person contest for some time, it’s also possible Patrick Corbin has inserted himself into the conversation with a fantastic second half.

Sorting through the candidates is difficult. Ultimately, one’s choice for Cy Young will depend on how one weighs what a pitcher can and cannot control — and how best to quantify those effects. To start, here are some general metrics that should be familiar to FanGraphs readers.

Based on these numbers, Jacob deGrom is the pretty clear favorite for Cy honors, with Max Scherzer an equally clear runner-up. What’s less clear, however, is that the results of a vote would produce a similar outcome, as both pitcher wins and other versions of WAR are likely to influence writers — and arrive at different conclusions than the figures here. Below, I’ve included some different versions of WAR, each of which paint the field in a different light.

Here we see a version of reality that suggests greater parity in the race. Averaging the numbers above, we’d still put deGrom first, Scherzer second, and Nola third, but Scherzer actually places ahead of deGrom in two of the four metrics, while Nola and Scherzer are more closely situated. Examining how each of WAR metrics arrives at its destination can help inform how to use them. Last week, Eno Sarris took a look at some of these same issues in a discussion of how large a role luck ought to play in Cy Young voting. There is also the question of what defines “luck” in the context of pitching, what sort of control a pitcher exerts over certain outcomes, and what role a a pitcher’s park ought to play in our evaluations of him.

The metrics above all feature different inputs which, naturally, lead to different results. In the version of WAR used at FanGraphs, those inputs are innings, strikeouts, infield flies, walks, and home runs — along with factors for league and park. DeGrom leads by this particular measure because his strikeout, walk, and homer numbers are all great. Scherzer has good walk and strikeout numbers but a closer-to-average home-run rate. Nola features slightly inferior (although still excellent) strikeout and walk numbers — plus a good home-run rate — but he falls behind Corbin, who has good numbers in all three.

The next metric, RA9, is another version of WAR carried at FanGraphs — one which, in this case, simply considers the number of runs a pitcher allows while also factoring for league and park. That’s how Nola, with the very good ERA, jumps up near Scherzer, though still short of deGrom. RA9 includes runs that were scored or not scored due to defense and sequencing, but does not try to make any adjustments for those factors.

Baseball-Reference begins with something like FanGraphs’ RA9 calculation but makes further adjustments for opponent and team defense, which is a significant factor in this year’s race. Nola tops the Baseball-Reference WAR leaderboard because of how well he’s prevented runs despite Philadelphia’s poor defense. Generally the effects of these defensive adjustments are muted, but because Nola appears to be headed for one of the 10 best bWAR seasons of the last 50 years, this case invites some scrutiny. Patrick Corbin suffers from the opposite scenario: Arizona has recorded strong defensive numbers, meaning he receives a “penalty” of sorts for his contribution to run-prevention.

Here are the overall team defense numbers by DRS, which Baseball-Reference uses, and UZR, which is included in WAR for position players but not pitchers here at FanGraphs.

There is obviously a much larger spread with the DRS figures, as defensive adjustments alone mean a difference of 24 runs between Nola and Corbin, which is about four times as much as the difference by UZR.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, their Deserved Run Average (DRA) metric accounts for as many aspects of a pitcher’s game as possible and attempts to factor for everything including park, opponent, catcher, umpire, and pitch effectiveness to determine how many runs a pitcher should have allowed with all those variables rendered neutral. By their methods, Scherzer leads over deGrom, with Nola and Corbin a ways behind.

There’s certainly an argument to be made for considering the strength of a defense behind a pitcher, and reason dictates that a defense can help or hurt a pitcher’s run-prevention numbers. Defense alone, however, isn’t going to fully explain the difference between a pitcher’s FIP and ERA. Luck is involved, as well. We can use Statcast information to determine just how much defense and luck might be involved, though it won’t do a good job separating those two factors. For starters, here are the xwOBA and wOBA figures for each of the pitchers above.

In terms of what a pitcher has deserved to concede based on quality of contact, strikeouts, and walks, Scherzer has gotten just about what we might expect, while deGrom and Nola aren’t far off expectations. Corbin is the outlier here, and there is a case to be made that Arizona’s defense is partially responsible for his good fortune. What’s interesting, though, is that Corbin’s ERA is actually much higher than his FIP. This could mean that Corbin has been rather fortunate this year on home runs or that the contact he’s conceded on balls in play has been of higher quality than the sort conceded by other pitchers.

We can remove the most skill-based aspects from above by taking out strikeouts and walks and looking at xwOBA on just batted balls.

Here we see almost no effect on Scherzer’s outcomes, with a slight benefit for deGrom and Nola, and then a big help for Corbin. You’ll note that the league-wide numbers are off by 15 points from each other, likely due to a potentially dead baseball, as the estimates on launch angle and exit velocity are based on previous seasons, when the ball was perhaps a bit more lively. As we are looking at numbers between pitchers in this season alone, the comparisons still provide value. What happens when we remove home runs and look solely at batted balls? See below.

In theory, these numbers factor in both defense and luck on batted balls this season. As we can see, it appears that, whatever poor defense has victimized Nola has likely been evened out by good fortune. The same is true for deGrom. Scherzer, meanwhile, appears to have received a slight benefit, with Corbin being the recipient of some good defense in Arizona. This probably doesn’t leave the reader with any definite conclusions. We have a better idea about the quality of contact and how defense might have affected run totals — which is to say not much — but the extent to which a pitcher exerts control over that contact is also a matter of debate.

If you believe that a pitcher controls very little of opponent contact — or, alternatively, are unsure of the level of control — the version of WAR hosted here at FanGraphs is your main resource. If you believe that a pitcher is wholly responsible for the quality of contact he concedes and also that defensive quality doesn’t move the needle much in one direction or another, RA9/WAR makes some sense for you. If you believe further adjustment needs to be made for defense, bWAR can provide some help. If you want a more granular look at individual pitches, DRA provides guidance. If you just want something based entirely on xwOBA, a crude attempt is made below.

While the question of value is somewhat objective, there is some subjectivity involved, but if making a decision on the Cy Young, it’s important to have as much information as possible to determine why one pitcher might be better than the other. It isn’t enough to simply prefer one stat over another and blindly rely on it because you generally agree with the methodology. Look at how the results are reached to make the best possible decision.

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As promised in the final paragraph above, here’s a rough approximation of WAR based on xwOBA:

The New York Mets are a treasure trove of interesting case studies. They’re a large-market team run frequently like a small-market one, a club that doesn’t always seem to consider the present quality of the team when making decisions about the future, an organization whose various departments — medical, public relations, etc. — don’t always appear to interact. Whatever they are, the Mess are never boring.

Fresh off rumors that the team is interested in pursuing, for their next general manager, someone who is less reliant on data, the team has recently caused the internet buzz again by choosing not to promote the team’s top first-base prospect, Peter Alonso. My colleagues Jay Jaffe and Sheryl Ring have already addressed the service-time games that involve Alonso, but I think it’s interesting to also tackle the situation by looking directly at Alonso vs. Jay Bruce as a pure baseball decision.

It’s a completely non-controversial opinion that 2018 has been a monster season for Alonso, one that has given him real hype as a prospect, something that was not a foregone conclusion entering the year. Even the ZiPS projections for Alonso didn’t quite see this comping, ranking him as the No. 2 Mets prospect coming into the season, the No. 3 first-base prospect in baseball, and the No. 99 prospect overall — all of which I believe were the most optimistic forecasts. Alonso started off the season blazing hot, hitting .408/.505/.776 with seven home runs in April for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies. That performance led to a mid-June promotion to Triple-A Las Vegas. Alonso struggled early there, hitting .171/.330/.368 with 29 strikeouts in 76 at-bats for the 51s. That was extremely concerning in light of the fact that, at 23, Alonso was not a young player at Double-A, but he hit .297/.367/.676 with 17 homers in 182 at-bats after the All-Star break.

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The New York Metropolitans have had what might be termed a disappointing season. (If this comes as news to you, I’ll wake you up when September ends.) Two of the Mets’ more recent debacles have involved a pair of players at very different stages in their careers. First, there’s David Wright, the Mets’ team captain and erstwhile third-sacker, who, as Jay Jaffe wrote last week, is attempting to work his way back from spinal stenosis, among other injuries. Then there’s Peter Alonso, the Mets’ first baseman of the future and author of a .285/.395/.579 slash line and 36 home runs across the upper minors this year, whom the Mets seem determined not to make the first baseman of the present.

Naturally, this has ruffled some feathers. The story with Wright seems to be that the Mets aren’t activating him because they instead want to collect insurance money, which is currently covering 75% of his salary while he’s on the disabled list. He’s not medically cleared to play despite appearing in minor league games.

This has led some to accuse the Mets of committing insurance fraud. (In a bizarre twist, MLB has a long history with insurance fraud, leading most recently to a case in which Ted Lilly was convicted of insurance fraud related to $4,600 worth of damage to his RV.)

Before we continue, please make sure you sit down, swallow any food or beverage in your mouth, and note the date and time, because I am about to defend the Mets.

No, the Mets are not committing insurance fraud.

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Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Note from Eric: Hey you, this is the last one of these for the year, as the minor-league regular season comes to a close. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time off next week, charging the batteries for the offseason duties that lie ahead for Kiley and me.

D.J. Peters, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 7   FV: 45+
Line: 4-for-7, 2 HR, 2B (double header)

Notes
A comparison of DJ Peters‘ 2017 season in the Cal League and his 2018 season at Double-A gives us a good idea of what happens to on-paper production when a hitter is facing better pitching and defenses in a more stable offensive environment.

Reports of Peters’ physical abilities haven’t changed, nor is his batted-ball profile different in such a way that one would expect a downtick in production. The 2018 line is, I think, a more accurate distillation of Peters’ abilities. He belongs in a talent bucket with swing-and-miss outfielders like Franchy Cordero, Randal Grichuk, Michael A. Taylor, Bradley Zimmer, etc. These are slugging center fielders whose contact skills aren’t particularly great. Players like this are historically volatile from one season to the next but dominant if/when things click. They’re often ~1.5 WAR players who have some years in the three-win range. Sometimes they also turn into George Springer.

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Update: Less than an hour after this was published, the Mets announced that Wright would join the team for this weekend’s series in San Francisco “to continue his rehab under the watch of our training staff” and adding that he “will remain on the DL [disabled list].” Via the New York Post, “Sources said the Mets most likely would not activate Wright on the current road trip but would be more likely to do so Friday [September 7], when they return home.”

In the latest demonstration of their 80-grade ability to transform good news into bad, the Mets have turned David Wright’s promising rehab assignment into another illustration of the club’s parsimony and clumsy relationship both with players and fans. Even while promoting the 35-year-old third baseman and team captain from their High-A affiliate to their Triple-A one on Tuesday, the team — which has gone 48-73 since April 13, just half a game better than the NL-worst Padres — indicated that it’s unlikely to promote Wright to the major leagues this year, even for a September cameo, because of the insurance implications.

A seven-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove winner and career .296/.376/.491 hitter, Wright hasn’t played in the majors since May 27, 2016 and has played just 75 big-league games since the start of 2015 due to chronic spinal stenosis (a narrowing of his spinal column) and problems with his right (throwing) shoulder. He has undergone three surgeries since his last MLB appearance, one to alleviate a herniated disc in his neck (June 2016), one to repair his right rotator cuff (September 2017), and one to alleviate pressure on a nerve in his back (October 2017). In August 2017, before the shoulder and back surgeries, he attempted a rehab stint, but it lasted just three games before he was shut down again.

In the wake of that operating table double whammy, Wright wasn’t cleared to resume baseball activity until June, and had to re-learn the mechanics of throwing. His pregame exercises to prepare his neck, back, and shoulder start at 1:30 pm for a night game, and he deals with pain on a daily basis. As The Athletic’s Marc Carig described it in his recent profile of Wright:

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