JABO: Trying to Make an MVP Case for Mark Teixeira

Unless he changes his name to Mike Trout and has some pretty impressive plastic surgery, there’s not a strong argument to be made for Mark Teixeira as the AL MVP this season. Teixeira currently leads the Yankees in FanGraphs WAR at 3.3 but he’s only 14th in WAR among AL batters, behind the likes of Logan Forsythe, Kevin Kiermaier, and, well, 11 others. Throw in pitchers and there are seven more above Teixeira. So despite having quite a comeback season and despite being the best hitter on a first place team, Teixeira isn’t in the AL MVP conversation.

But what if we try hard to put him there? Maybe we can find something we’re missing, some way that, even if things stay as they are through the rest of the season, Teixeira deserves to carry the mantle of best player in the American League. It’s probably a stretch, but what the heck! What else is a guy to do on a Sunday night? (Please, please don’t answer that.)

Right off the bat, and you know this is going to be good because I’m already resorting to baseball-themed cliche, I should acknowledge that leading the league in WAR doesn’t necessitate winning the MVP, but for our purposes here, it’s an easy way to sort players, especially since the presumed leader in the race also happens to be the leader in WAR. So convenient!

Including pitchers, there are 21 players with a higher WAR than Teixeira so far this season. Moving a guy from 22nd to first without him actually doing anything is a lot to ask, but here we go! We can start off by saying this: pitchers shouldn’t win the MVP. Pitching is a completely different position and necessitates different skills and should be judged independently. That’s why pitchers have the Cy Young award. Do I believe this? No! But it works here and we press onward! So drop the seven pitchers from the list and Teixeira moves up to 14th. That’s progress! I wish all my housing projects were this easily accomplished.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.