Yesterday we talked about the questions facing the National League contenders. Today, we turn our attention to the American League. Every team but the Twins, Royals and Mariners are within four-two-and-a-half games of a spot in the postseason, if you count the wild card play-in game part of the postseason. That leaves us with eleven teams still playing for something in 2012. Or does it?

In the American League East, the Yankees have a comfortable seven-game lead, and seem poised to pull away with the division title. Yes, with injuries to CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees could improve by adding a dependable starting pitcher, but so far they haven’t been linked with the starters most likely to hit the trade market. Overall, though, the Yankees are in the best shape of any team heading into the second half.

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With yet another day to go before actual baseball returns to the field, I thought I would take a quick look at some of the potential MVP candidates in both leagues based on the first half of the season.

Identifying MVP candidates is certainly not a straightforward process, nor is the criteria universally agreed upon. Knowing this I will not begin or end this article with any claim to have identified the “proper” candidates. These are my candidates based on my way of looking at the term “valuable”.

So what is my criteria? Well, I like to think of MVPs as players that provide an exceptional amount of production in both an absolute and relative sense. This means identifying players that lead or are close to leading the league in production, but where there is also a sizable gap between their production and that of the second best player on their own team. This means that I do tend to discount great performances by players that happen to share the same uniform as equally great players. Is it their fault? Absolutely not. In fact, those players could likely be the best all around players in the entire league. But when it comes to value I think there is a relative component that should be considered. This isn’t to necessarily give credit to the player (i.e. they don’t “step it up” to make up for the gap in talent on the team), but rather to the performance itself.

Like I said, this is my criteria and I don’t claim that it should trump all others, nor would I say it is complete on it’s own. Rather, I think it’ a useful starting place.

Okay, enough with the preamble. Let’s get to the data.

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Mark Trumbo was the least recognizable player in the Home Run Derby. Sure, Trumbo finished second in the AL Rookie of the Year Award voting last season, but he lacked the star power of a true superstar like Prince Fielder or Matt Kemp. But Trumbo impressed in the Derby, nearly making the finals while hitting some of the longest home runs of the night. And while the Home Run Derby doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, it’s an opportunity for players to display their talents in front of a national audience. Casual fans may not realize how good Trumbo has been this season. After last night, fans will start to take notice of his breakout.

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Last season, Angels starting pitchers combined for a 3.78 FIP, eighth-best in baseball. Then the team added C.J. Wilson to replace Joel Pineiro, giving them — on paper — a front three that would be one of the best in the game. Add in more Jerome Williams and Garrett Richards and less Tyler Chatwood, and it seemed that on paper, Los Angeles of Anaheim would easily have a top-five rotation this season. So far, however, it hasn’t worked out that way.

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We’ve seen Dan Haren‘s results this season, and we’ve been wondering what’s going on. His walks are up. He’s giving up more hits. And his FIP is the highest of his career. Granted, his poor first half hasn’t been as alarming as, say, Tim Lincecum’s, but Haren’s been off his game for the first three months of the season.

After Tuesday’s latest disappointing outing, in which he lasted only 4.1 innings, giving up nine hits and six earned runs, Haren revealed that he’s been dealing with a lingering back issue. According to the Orange County Register, “Haren said this year’s problem began when he ‘tweaked’ his back during his final spring training start and has never really gone away.”  [Haren’s last spring training start was on April 2 against the Dodgers. It was a relief to learn that Haren’s back injury arose after the FanGraphs staff saw him at the In-N-Out in Tempe, Arizona on March 11. We were starting to feel a bit responsible.]

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On April 30, the Los Angeles Angels had a record of 8-15 and sat 9.5 games behind the first-place Texas Rangers. Today, the Angels are 40-33. They are now only 4.5 games behind the Rangers, and tied for the second wild card with the Tampa Bay Rays. Much of the focus for the Angels success in May and June has been on rookie sensation Mike Trout, Albert Pujols‘ re-found stroke, and the overall play of Mark Trumbo.

But don’t overlook the Angels’ bullpen. After a poor start, Angels relievers have been hugely important to the team’s revived play. And it wasn’t just the addition of Ernesto Frieri in early May that turned things around for the Angels’ relief corps.

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Last night against the Angels, Hector Noesi served up another home run on an 0-2 count. As a fan, having a pitcher of my team give up one of those is up there with one of the more disheartening occurances in an individual baseball game. The count is as lopsided as it can be in favor of the pitcher. To go from that to the single most hitter-friendly outcome is a jarring, unexpected and sometimes crushing whiplash.

And since I watch* Mariner games and almost only Mariner games, I have a disproportionate sense that every 0-2 home run in the history of baseball have been given up by Mariner pitchers**. Perhaps you feel that way about your team too. But personal observation is a crude and misleading way to go about forming beliefs unless you want to look like a big stupidhead the second you run into a person*** with actual data.

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DATA!

Let us delve once again into the numbers. The season is now two months aged and we have more stories unfolding than we have enough digital ink to cover: Will the Red Sox ever find an outfielder? Is Adam Jones the new Matt Kemp? Can the White Sox really make a playoff push in a rebuilding year? And will the 2012 Pirates really go down as one of the worst offenses in modern history?

We will not truly know the answers to these questions for some time, but we can peer into the murky mirror-mirror that is the De-Lucker! and at least get a better feel for the state of everything. Much of the offensive fluctuations in the early part of the season come from strange movements in BABIP. The De-Lucker! attempts to smooth those fluctuations and give us a better guess as to who is doing well and who is not.

And Josh Hamilton, you will see, is in both categories.
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Mike Trout is off to a great start. In just 129 plate appearances this season, the 20-year-old outfielder is hitting .304/.364/.522. Combine that with his spectacular defense, and it looks like Trout is well on his way to becoming one of the best players in baseball. Although Trout has been great this season, Bryce Harper has overshadowed his performance. And while Dave Cameron recently told us that Harper could be on his way to a historic season, Mike Trout isn’t that far behind.

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Mark Trumbo has put the Angels offense on his back this year. His walk-off home run in last night’s game against the Yankees pushed his total for the season to eight and his wRC+ of 172 sits sixth in the league, trailing just Paul Konerko, Josh Hamilton, Joey Votto, David Wright and Carlos Ruiz. Most notably, Trumbo brings an OBP of .388 into Tuesday’s action just one year after posting a .291 mark. The jokes were easy — Trumbo never saw a pitch he didn’t like, and indeed his 52.9% swing rate was among the tops in the majors.

This year, Trumbo has developed his eye, and his ability to recognize the strike zone is paying off not only with walks but with big-time power as well.

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