While the MVP award announcements are normally used as an opportunity to make snide comments and question the intelligence of writers, I prefer to think of them a different way. We know that we’ll never be able to convert everyone to sabermetrics, and there are always going to be one or two people that make questionable decisions on their ballots. Instead of focusing our attention on them, why not move that focus back to where it’s supposed to be: the players.

The MVP award (and the subsequent conversation surrounding it) is a chance for us to recognize players for having impressive, noteworthy years. Twenty-three players received a vote during this year’s AL MVP voting, but there were still more out there that had seasons worth remembering. These players aren’t necessarily “snubs”, since each player in the MVP voting also deserved recognition for their seasons; it’s simply there are sometimes more players doing exceptional things than can be highlighted.

So even if the BBWAA missed these players, let’s give a few of them the spotlight they deserve.

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Early Friday morning, Texas Ranger owner Nolan Ryan turned some heads with a surprising comment about the Rangers’ offseason plans. While the Rangers had made it clear earlier this offseason that they are focusing on acquiring pitching, as one of the large market teams with a weak first baseman, most people expected them to be players in the bidding for Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols.

Well, think again:

“Making a seven-or-eight year deal for Fielder or Pujols is not something our organization is prepared to do,” Ryan said. “I very much expect Mitch Moreland to be our first baseman next year.”

Mitch Moreland may be a solid first baseman and a young player with good upside, but to state the obvious, he’s no Fielder or Pujols. Is Nolan Ryan making a mistake to write off pursuing either of them?

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On Tuesday, we took a quick look at the competitive balance in the MLB, and I made the claim that baseball may have more parity than most leagues, but it also has want of greater balance. During the course of the piece, I made this statement:

The NFL has decided it wants payroll to have essentially no impact on winning, so teams basically trot out the same amount of money every Sunday and hope their money was better-spent. Is that what the MLB wants?

Aft’wards, Paul Swydan pointed out to me that indeed NFL salaries are not flat. Despite their hard cap, their hefty revenue sharing, and their tight spandex pants, the NFL still exhibits nearly a $77M gap between the biggest and lowest payroll — impressive, but still nothing compared to the MLB:

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Previous entries:
Primer
The Full Story
Batters

In a series with a 16-7 game and an 11-10 game, and one in which the big moments were dominated by the hitters, it can be easy to forget about the pitchers. And although the performances of Chris Carpenter and Derek Holland pale behind those of David Freese and Lance Berkman, they deserve to be remembered.

On the other side of the coin, Jason Motte, who was so excellent in the first two rounds of the playoffs, was bailed out by his teammates in the final two games. As poorly as Motte pitched, it was the entire Rangers bullpen that collapsed, with Scott Feldman, Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando, and Mark Lowe all coming up well negative for Ron Washington and the Rangers.

Observe, the leaders and trailers in pitcher series probability added for the 2011 World Series:

Click to see the fully functioning visualization and follow the jump for more.

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Yesterday, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein announced the Chicago Cubs and manager Mike Quade have parted ways. Kudos to Theo Epstein for not doing what we all expected him to: Fire Quade immediately.

It appears Epstein — like he has approached most everything in his young Cubs reign — decided to withhold judgement until he had fully investigated the matter himself. Like Joe Maddon is wont to say, “Tell me what you think, not what you heard.”

Quade’s managerial time with the Cubs was both short and possibly undeserved. Taking the helm when Lou Piniella suddenly retired in 2010, Quade inherited a team that was predisposed towards failure. But, despite that, the team went 24-13 to close out the season. That was enough proof for Jim Hendry to vault Quade not only into the manager discussion, but the manager’s chair:

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In yesterday’s primer, I introduced the basics behind World Series win probabilities. Today, we begin looking at the 2011 World Series through this lens.

The first natural use of win probabilities, especially on FanGraphs, is the win probability graph. Observe, the graph of series win probability for the St. Louis Cardinals throughout the World Series:

Click to view the graph in a new window with all the bells and whistles provided by the Tableau software.

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Thanks to Patrick Newman for his help in writing and researching this article.

Judging from the first responders to the coming storm over the Pacific, this title bears repeating: Yu Darvish is not Daisuke Matsuzaka. The natural search for comps, paired with the disappointment that was Matsuzaka’s career, will lead to suspicion when it comes to the newest ace slated to come over from Japan. Why should it work out this time if it didn’t work out the last couple times? But there are real differences between the two pitchers that could use a little emphasis.

Consider this list your consolation if you are dumbfounded by the posting fee that your team will spend simply for the right to speak with Darvish.

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Over the next few days, I will be running out a series based on win probabilities from the World Series not only using single game win probabilities like the ones in our game graphs, but also using overall series win probabilities, which will be introduced today.

The idea behind the series win probabilities is based around the same idea as the single game win probabilities we use here: both teams have a 50% chance of winning each game. As such, this flow chart describes every possible path for a team through the World Series (or any other seven game series; the part from 1-1 up would describe a five-game series):

Click to embiggen, and then follow the jump for more on what’s inside.

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Before Game Four, Rangers manager Ron Washington was caught on camera giving pitcher Derek Holland a pep talk right before first pitch. He may want to do the same tonight with Matt Harrison, as the Rangers need a good outing from him tonight.

For the World Series, the Rangers’ cumulative bullpen WPA is -1.065. The four relievers Washington has used most — Alexi Ogando (five appearances), Neftali Feliz (four), Scott Feldman (four) and Darren Oliver (three) all have a negative WPA. Ogando has been the most egregiously bad, and also the most frequently used. He has compiled a negative WPA in four of his five appearances, and in his one positive outing he probably would have been tagged with runs — and a negative WPA — if Albert Pujols had not forgotten about the hit-and-run he had apparently called for. Feliz had been fine until last night, but even when he has performed well enough, he has been treading on thin ice, as he has walked at least one batter in all four of his World Series appearances.

It’s not just that the Rangers bullpen is failing — they’re also failing in the clutch. Eleven of the 23 appearances by the Rangers’ bullpen have come with a pLI higher than two — in those 11 appearances, the ‘pen has totaled a WPA of -1.086. Most of the ugly in that came last night, and it will be interesting to see if Washington has a short memory and goes to his trusted guys again — no one threw more than 23 pitches so they should all be ready to go — or if he is going to seek alternatives.

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There was a moment, as the Cardinals and Rangers somehow dragged themselves through the middle innings of Game Six, when David Freese was the goat for the Cardinals. Freese was 0-for-2 through the first five innings, but it wasn’t like he stranded the bases loaded or struck out looking twice. It wasn’t the bat. It was this one moment here that induced cringes (and laughs) nationwide, captured by SB Nation’s Jeff Sullivan:

When it comes to pitching, the pop-up is the next best thing to a strikeout. Batters reach on pop-ups around two percent of the time. There it was, already inside Freese’s glove. And then, there it was again, on the ground, as one of the Cardinals’ biggest postseason heroes committed one of the most egregious errors a Major League baseball player can ever commit, whether it’s Game Six of the World Series or a 6-0 sixth inning in the 66th game of the season. Of course, the error would be punished, as a mere two pitches later Michael Young drilled a double to the left field gap which plated Hamilton, the go-ahead run.

The stage was set, should the Rangers just hold on, for Freese’s mistake to be the one that ended the Cardinals’ season. But, as Jonah Keri reminded us in his fantastic recap for Grantland, without the constraint of a clock, as long as there remains an out to be made, any scenario is possible.

Like going from the goat who blew the Little League play to putting together one of the greatest games in World Series history.

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