My Hypothetical AL MVP Ballot

With a week to go in the regular season, the AL MVP race is all but over. Mike Trout is going to win it this year, and the only question is whether he’s going to win unanimously. There’s no real argument at the top this year, and no real way you can even make a case for anyone else. He’s been the best hitter in baseball. He’s still a great baserunner. He plays an up-the-middle position. He’s hit even better in clutch situations. His team won the division. Unless a voter just wants to draw attention to himself, the #1 spot on the AL MVP ballot is as easy as picking the NL Cy Young award this year.

But spots #2 through #10 are still pretty interesting, with a lot of players having good-but-not-transcendent seasons. And going through the process of filling out the top 10 lets us talk about the process of evaluating different player types, so while it probably doesn’t matter whether someone finishes 4th or 7th in the grand scheme of things, I’ll present my full ballot with an explanation for each player. To the list.

1. Mike Trout, CF, Angels.

A vote for anyone else is essentially indefensible. There’s no other candidate here. It’s beyond time to recognize the best player in the game for being just that.

2. Michael Brantley, LF/CF, Indians.

I fully expect this spot to go to either Victor Martinez or Jose Abreu, who have had great seasons at the plate and excel at the things that voters traditionally care about. However, Brantley is more than deserving of the best non-Trout-AL-player award, and thankfully, we don’t even have to base the argument on defensive metrics. While Brantley has played nearly 400 innings in center field this year, UZR and DRS have never really loved his glovework, and even including the position adjustment to give him credit for the time in CF, he rates at -8 runs on defense this year. Brantley is in no way a traditional MVP candidate, but he’s also not being propped up by an aggressive evaluation of his value in the field.

Instead, Brantley has just quietly shown how one can be a great offensive player without being a pure slugger. By making a ton of contact and driving the ball to the gaps, Brantley has managed a .325/.384/.506 line that is good for a 154 wRC+, fifth best in the AL. And that’s just what he’s done at the plate; he’s also been the third best baserunner in the AL this year. When you add in credit for the runs he’s created with his legs, he grades out as the AL’s second best offensive player. Yes, even ahead of the big sluggers who hit more home runs.

Brantley probably won’t finish second, because voters don’t value singles, doubles, and stolen bases the same way they value home runs and RBIs, but Brantley has hit well enough that there really shouldn’t even be too serious of an argument about where he stands relative to Abreu and Martinez. Brantley has been their offensive equal while also playing the field, and about 30% of the time, playing an up-the-middle position. You don’t have to even think he’s a particularly great defender to realize that he’s clearly been more valuable defensively than a DH and a slow-footed 1B, and since those two don’t even have an offensive advantage to prop themselves up on, Brantley becomes a pretty easy pick here.

3A and 3B: Felix Hernandez, SP, Mariners and Corey Kluber, SP, Indians

I’ll write more about the AL Cy Young race tomorrow, but separating these two really might come down to their last starts of the year. Hernandez wins by runs allowed, but he’s been supported by a pitcher-friendly park and a good defensive team. Kluber wins by the fielding independent metrics, which don’t hold the Indians atrocious defense against him, but his career .326 BABIP suggests that perhaps he’s prone to giving up tougher-to-defend contact, so holding some of his slightly higher ERA against him is fair. Both have been great, and splitting these hairs will not be easy, so I’m just punting on that for today and putting these two in a tie for third.

5. Jose Bautista, OF, Blue Jays.

It’s Michael Brantley without the baserunning, basically. Or, if you prefer, it’s Jose Abreu while also playing a more important defensive position. Bautista has been mostly overlooked because we’ve gotten used to him putting up .400 wOBAs on non-contending teams, but he remains one of the game’s very best hitters, and he’s not a big negative on the field or the bases. He might not be the best hitter in baseball anymore, but he’s still one of the best players in the sport.

6. Josh Donaldson, 3B, A’s.

Now we start getting into the area with a dozen players for a half dozen spots, with few differences between them. Donaldson’s WAR is based on a strongly positive defensive rating, but as I wrote about Hunter Pence last week, I also believe that MVP voting should reward hitters for their situational hitting, and Donaldson’s WAR understates how good he’s been in creating runs with the opportunities he’s been given. If you decide you don’t like UZR’s estimate of his defense and cut it in half, but then also credit Donaldson for hitting well with men on base, his WAR actually goes up, not down. I wouldn’t hang my hat on Donaldson definitively being better than any of the next four guys on the list, but neither have any of them been obviously better than he has been. You don’t have to put full faith in single-season UZR to acknowledge that Josh Donaldson has had a great year.

7. Jon Lester, SP, A’s.

By ERA or even ERA-, Lester is right there with Felix and Kluber, but he’s also a reminder of why the concept of “earned runs” is silly; he’s given up 14 “unearned runs”, so his RA9 is actually almost exactly in line with his FIP. Essentially, the sequencing of events after an official scorer awarded an error has stricken some of the runs he’s allowed from his record, but there’s no real reason to omit those from the ledger without also attempting to account for runs his defense might have saved him. But even holding those “unearned runs” against him, Lester has still had an excellent season, and deserves recognition as one of the AL’s most valuable contributors this year.

8. Jose Abreu, 1B, White Sox.

Abreu has had a very good season at the plate, but as a one dimensional player, he has to really outhit players who do more than just hit, and that includes playing almost every day, which Abreu hasn’t quite managed to do. With only 139 games played, he’s a dozen or so games played behind the league leaders, and those missing games serve to push him down slightly from where he’d be if he had played more frequently. On a rate basis, he’s probably been a top five player, but he just didn’t quite play enough to crack that tier for me.

9. Robinson Cano, 2B, Mariners.

Despite the focus on his home run total, Cano has been his usual excellent self, posting a 138 wRC+ and playing solid defense at second base. But his placement here is another example of my preference for rewarding players who take advantage of the situations they’re given, and create more runs than context-neutral stats suggest. Among AL hitters, Cano is #2 in wRC+ with runners in scoring position, and his RE24 is five runs highest than his linear-weights based batting runs. In a crowded section of the ballot, Cano’s excellence at converting run scoring opportunities into actual runs gets him the nod.

10. Alex Gordon, LF, Royals.

Like Donaldson, Gordon’s WAR is based on giving him a lot of credit for being an excellent defensive outfielder. However, also like Donaldson, he also has converted a high number of his run scoring opportunities, and he ranks #3 in the AL in wRC+ with men in scoring position, just behind Cano and Abreu. Even if you cut a few runs off his defensive metrics, you can add a few back as a clutch hitting bonus, and Gordon still rates as one of the AL’s best performers this year.

Explaining the Snub: Victor Martinez, DH, Tigers

I think Martinez is probably going to finish second in the actual voting, and I’d be surprised if there was a ballot turned in without his name on it; Voters just aren’t going to shun a guy who hit .334/.403/.563 on a playoff team. But Martinez is perhaps the best example in recent history of why baserunning should not be overlooked when talking about offensive contributions to run scoring.

If we’re going to quote Martinez’s number of times reaching base, we should also talk about how often he’s managed to convert those into runs, which is the actual currency of baseball. And Martinez’s baserunning numbers are staggeringly terrible.

He’s been on first base when a single was hit 42 times this year, and he’s managed to go first-to-third just twice. Twice!. The AL average this is year, over 600 plate appearances, has been to be on first when a single is hit 30 times, and to advance to third on nine of those. Martinez’s excellent batting record has given him 12 additional chances, and he still has the fourth lowest total of first-to-thirds in the AL this year. The only guys who advanced at a lower rate were David Ortiz, Billy Butler, and Brian McCann.

How about scoring from first on a double? Martinez has been on first base 20 times when a double was hit, and he scored once. Again per 600 plate appearances, the league average was to be on first base when a double was hit eight times, and to score on three of those. Thanks to Martinez’s batting skills and the power of J.D. Martinez, Victor has had more than twice as many chances to score from first on a double as the average hitter and has still only managed to do it the one time.

Despite hitting in front of a guy who hit .320/.363/.570 this year, Martinez has actually turned a below average number of times on base into runs scored. This matters, and we shouldn’t assume that baserunning is such a small part of the game that we can safely ignore it and just focus on a player’s numbers at the plate. Martinez has had a great season at the plate, but less great season once baserunning is factored in. And as a DH, offense is all he has. Martinez certainly had an an excellent season at the plate, but there’s more to baseball than just hitting.