My Hypothetical NL MVP Ballot
A year ago, I cast an actual ballot for the National League MVP, agreeing with most of my fellow BBWAA members that Clayton Kershaw was the league’s best and most valuable player. The downside of having a ballot was that I couldn’t really talk too much about my thought process in the run-up to to the ballots actually being cast, since the association requests we keep our votes private until after the results are announced.
This year, I’m voting for the NL Cy Young, where choosing a winner is basically an impossible task. So, instead of tying myself in more knots trying to pick a winner in the thing I actually have some say in, I’m going to write a couple posts about the MVP races instead, with the NL today and the AL tomorrow. If I had a ballot again this year, this is how it would look, at least with a few games left to go; in most cases, there isn’t enough time left in the season to move the needle enough to change positions here, and realistically, there isn’t much of a difference between down-ballot spots anyway.
Anyway, here are my 10 picks for a hypothetical NL MVP ballot this year.
#1. Bryce Harper, OF, Washington
Harper’s been the best player in baseball this year, carrying a team that was a dumpster fire nearly everywhere except right field. The team was a disappointment, and won’t be playing in October, but that’s in spite of Harper’s efforts to make up for the uninspired play of his teammates, not because of it. And yes, I believe there is value in every win, even ones that don’t result in a playoff berth. This is an individual award, and no individual stood out more in 2015 than Harper. I’m sure he’d much rather have had a winning season, but he played like a winner this year, and deserves recognition for his own achievements.
#2B. Clayton Kershaw, SP, Los Angeles
#2C. Zack Greinke, SP, Los Angeles
Okay, so, two things here:
1. I legitimately don’t know how I’m going to order these three in my Cy Young vote, and I want to wait until Sunday to see how the final weekend plays out before I commit in any direction. I also don’t want to break the spirit of the keep-your-vote-quiet rule by hinting at which way I might be leaning at the moment, so clustering these three allows me to feel okay discussing their merits on the MVP ballot without spoiling my potential Cy Young vote.
2. These three pitchers all really do belong near the top of MVP ballots. The gap between Harper and the next best position player in the NL is currently 2.3 WAR, and even adjusting for context-dependent performance, the hitters next tier of hitters aren’t really having more impact on their teams than these three aces. I know voters have generally had a tendency to ignore great pitching performances in MVP voting under the “they have their own award” copout, but if we can all mostly agree that Kershaw was the MVP last year, we should be able to acknowledge that three pitchers (Kershaw included) having better years than Kershaw did last year belong near the top of this year’s ballot too.
So, yeah, I’m not picking between these three yet. But I’d absolutely have all three in my top four. They are among the primary reasons their teams are in the postseason, and all deserve recognition, regardless of the fact that the Cy Young Award also exists.
Like with Harper, Votto’s team is not going to the postseason, and that may very well hurt him when it comes to the actual balloting, but the Reds first baseman couldn’t have done much more to salvage his team’s season. Because of Harper’s amazing season, he doesn’t lead the NL in too many offensive categories, but he’s sixth in batting average, second in on base percentage, and even fourth in slugging percentage, showing legitimate power in addition to his prodigious on-base skills. That combination puts him second in context-neutral offensive runs above average, and he’s also second in RE24, which adjusts for the value of moving baserunners. So, no, his RBI doesn’t tell you anything besides the fact that the Reds leadoff hitters sucked this year, and yes, Votto was indeed one of the league’s best players this year.
The Cubs third baseman hasn’t just been the league’s best rookie this year, he’s been one of the best player overall. Not only has he shown the kind of power and line drive skills that were expected, he’s also proven to be a quality defender at third base, and somewhat surprisingly, an excellent baserunner as well. Bryant’s well-rounded skillset has made him the Cubs best position player, but he rates this highly on my ballot in part because he’s also been the most clutch hitter in the National League this year. His context-neutral numbers are excellent on their own, but Bryant has been even better when he’s had runners on base or in high leverage situations, so he’s allocated his offensive production to the most important at-bats he was given. As I wrote last week, I think there is room for context-specific performance in backwards-looking awards voting, and Bryant gets a boost because of how he’s distributed his hits this year.
The Pirates star center fielder is just ho-humming his way to another pedestrian +6 win season (his fourth in a row), but this one might be the most amazing of all, considering he began the year with a bum knee that sapped all of his power. Back in April, it wasn’t clear whether Cutch was going to be able to contribute much to the Pirates this year, after he ran an 81 wRC+ and was clearly unable to perform at his expected levels. But then the calendar flipped to May, and he’s put up a .307/.420/.514 line ever since, once again leading the Pirates back to the postseason. The injury did take some of his speed, so he was more of just a hitter this year than an all-around offensive threat, but when you’re this good of a hitter and you can play center field, then you’re one of the most valuable players in baseball.
Bryant wasn’t the only Cubs hitter posting a quality season this year, and he wasn’t the only Cubs hitter to distribute his hits in about the most effective fashion possible either; like Bryant, Rizzo had very good context-neutral numbers that look even better when you adjust for his terrific clutch performances. He 37 offensive runs above average are good for fourth in the NL, but by RE24, he was 60 runs above average, behind only Harper and Votto, and his clutch rating (which adds in leverage, rather than just baserunner state) was third best in the NL as well. When you take a good overall performance, then distribute the hits towards the most impactful situations, you end up with a guy who actually leads the NL in Win Probability Added, ahead of even Harper. His context-neutral numbers might not stack up against some others, but Rizzo’s impact on the Cubs this year can’t be understated.
Votto’s west coast clone, the paragraphs written about the Reds first baseman apply the Diamondbacks star as well. He’s continues to establish himself as one of the game’s very best hitters, only overshadowed this year by Harper’s astounding season and Votto’s remarkable second half. Goldschmidt isn’t just a hitter, either; thanks in large part to his 21 stolen bases, Goldschmidt was worth nearly four additional runs on the bases, making him a truly complete offensive player. And he plays quality defense at first base. There’s not much more you can ask for in a franchise player than what Paul Goldschmidt gives Arizona on a daily basis.
This spot could easily go to either A.J. Pollock or Jason Heyward, both terrific defensive outfielders having very good offensive seasons as well, but in the category of guys who provide value in the field while also hitting well, I’m going to go with the best catcher in baseball instead. Posey might rate behind both in WAR, but our model doesn’t include much of a catcher’s defensive contributions at the moment, and Posey ranks as one of the best pitch-receiving backstops in the game. With his contributions on both side of the ball, Posey remains a true superstar.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
You cite the difference in WAR between Harper and the hitters below him but ignore the difference in WAR between Kershaw and the others- 1.4 above Arrieta, and 2.7 above Greinke. If you’re just going by who pitched the best, it’s Kershaw and it’s really not that close. This is the last place I thought I’d read a piece saying that it’s a toss-up.
Who knew there were other metrics besides WAR?
You cite one portion of Dave’s article but ignore another where he says he’s not going to discuss pitchers in enough detail to make his likely Cy Young vote known.
Obviously can’t speak for Dave, but I would assume that he’d say something along the lines of that when you are talking about awards, using metrics that strip out info and or make assumptions about regression isn’t really useful. FIP is real useful for predicting the future, but I’d imagine that just as Dave cites clutch stats for several of the position players in the piece, he wouldn’t want to ignore things like stranding runners when deciding how valuable a player was over an already-concluded season.
How has this “FIP is about projections” thing not died yet?
Splitting the difference between rWAR and fWAR is a good idea, but it’s not because FIP is known to be less accurate or less real than RA. It’s because we don’t know how much responsibility to assign to pitchers for RA; we just know that 100% and 0% are both bad answers.
Exactly. Just because FIP a better predictor of future ERA than ERA itself, that doesn’t make it any less relevant for discussing who the best pitcher was this year.
I think, at this point, it is just to be different. Unique. Have their/our own metric.
There is a crucial difference. As he said MVP and CYA are backwards looking. Pitching WAR here uses FIP which is more forward looking. ERA is more backward looking. So you have to consider that when looking at WAR in terms of these awards. FWIW I would vote Kershaw, I just don’t think your comment adequately accounts for this difference.
This is a false narrative that has been established repeatedly in the comments section recently which is a little troubling. FIP is entirely “backwards looking” – it just makes the assumption that the only things that are pitcher can control are home run rate, strikeouts, and walks. It is not meant to be predictive but to remove the influence of defenses in pitcher evaluation.
That being said, Cameron has reportedly mentioned he is unsure as to just how valid the above assumption is, due to some pitchers generating weak contact, and has shown a mixed usage between RA evaluation and fielding independent evaluation, which shows itself in the evaluation of the three pitchers in this list.
repeatedly over reportedly, oops
It doesn’t really matter how much of BABIP can be controlled in this situation, as we’re purely looking at past results of actual run prevention. Besides, there’s probably also some skill in stranding baserunners like thriving psychologically under pressure or simply pitching better out of the stretch as Trevor Rosenthal has proven after abandoning the windup this year. As such, ERA should be the primary metric used, which of course gives Greinke the advantage.
“Besides, there’s probably also some skill in stranding baserunners like thriving psychologically under pressure or simply pitching better out of the stretch as Trevor Rosenthal has proven after abandoning the windup this year. As such, ERA should be the primary metric used.”
This is a non sequitur. ERA gives the pitcher 100% of the responsibility for balls in play, which everyone knows is not correct. More importantly, it necessarily includes the performances of other players in a measure that purports to be measuring only individual performance.
100% is just as wrong as 0%, but at least 0% (FIP) is only measuring individual performance.
FIP isn’t forward looking. It’s stripping out fielding.
Not just fielding, balls in play. We know pitchers have relatively little ability to reproduce their performance on balls in play, but we don’t know how much of their performance at any given time is a result of something that they did or just a result of randomness.
And sequencing.
And sequencing. Good point. Still not forward looking though.
FIP isn’t perfect, I’m not saying it is. But it isn’t forward looking as I’ve seen people say recently. It’s all about past performance. It’s just the past performance in Ks, BBs and HRs allowed.
It’s also worth noting that Kershaw faced a significantly tougher group of opposing offenses this season than Arrieta. I fully expect Jake to win the award due to Kershaw fatigue and the Dodgers splitting votes, but there’s no question that Clayton has been the best pitcher in the National League this season. He’s walked 6 fewer batters and struck out 65 more than Arrieta.
I do think fatigue was a factor when, say, Michael Jordan lost an MVP award to Karl Malone (just as one example). But I think a vote for Arrieta or Greinke in this case is more a legitimate belief that they were better than Kershaw this year. There’s ample evidence to build very compelling cases for either (and for Kershaw also).
Better opposing offenses? Arrieta has had to face the Pirates and the Cardinals all season. And no hit your Dodgers. All 3 pitchers absolutely would blow the competition out of the water any other year in Cy Young voiting. It’s incredible that all 3 are playing so well. Arrieta is pitching historically well since the ASB FWIW
How does anyone still think the Cardinals have a good offense? I’d really like to know. Do me a favor, just look at the team leaderboards and go by wRC+, the Central is filled with average or worse offensive teams. The NL West is like that too except for the Giants and the Dodgers 3rd or 4 last I checked. People need to just stop assuming that the central is a good hitting division.
Also, the only thing historic about Arrieta’s second half is the ERA. This isn’t to say a 0.80 second half ERA isn’t incredible, but take a peak at this second half comparison:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2015&month=31&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=2036,4153
Yes, better opposing offenses. Kershaw’s opposing lineups have averaged 13.9th this season in runs scored whereas Arrieta’s have averaged 18th. And while I would love to be the owner of the Dodgers, I’m actually an Orioles fan. If you look at the numbers, it is blindingly obvious that Kershaw has been much more dominant this season than Arrieta. Jake has the ERA argument, but if you apply that then Greinke trumps him there.
That’s true, and if there was an award for best pitching performance since the All-Star break, I would definitely vote for him.
Strike that last comment. Ivdown just showed that Kershaw has been better since the All-Star break as well.
Simply going by runs scored per team is not a good metric of opposing offenses faced when looking at pitchers. For example, the Rockies are 5th in runs scored, but worst in baseball by wRC+ against lefties. Kershaw has faced them 5 times this season, three of them in LA. The Rockies are also the worst offense in baseball on the road. In one of the matchups in Coors, the temperature was 41 degrees.
Conversely, the Pirates and Cardinals are bottom 10 offenses against lefties. The Cardinals jump to 4th by wRC+ against righties, the Pirates 8th.
Maybe…just maybe…the Rockies are last in WRC+ against lefties this season BECAUSE they faced CLAYTON KERSHAW five times this year.
32.1 IP, 26 H, 14 R, 12 ER, 3 HR, 11 BB, 39 K
That’s his line against Colorado this season. Good, but not great, and not the reason Colorado is last both on the road and against lefties. Especially considering his totals represent under 10% of the PA the Rockies have accumulated versus lefties.
I agree that runs scored isn’t ideal, but it’s still indicative and was the easiest thing for me to calculate quickly.
argumentum magis ex pigritia is a logical fallacy
Saying there is “no question” that ANY of these guys was the best pitcher in the NL this season is just silly.
There’s no question that Kershaw was the best pitcher in the National League this season.
I don’t know, still, how you can say there is “no question”. I might agree that there is little question that Kershaw remains, as far as we can discern, the best true-talent pitcher in the MLB, but that does not itself imply that he had the best season. Unless you’ve settled the debate yourself, any sabermetrician would tell you that the three pitchers have been remarkably close this year, in terms of just what they did in the past season.
They’re actually not close to anyone who believes that BABIP is mostly out of the pitcher’s control.
This comment is exactly why I came to FanGraphs today. I want to see if anyone has developed a stat for pitchers that takes into account every single batter faced and that batter’s individual stats (say OPS) and combines them into a meaningful metric for the entire season.
Example: Total OPS of all batters faced/number of batters faced. I think the OPS should be as of the time the batter was faced (rather than end of year OPS) to account for outside factors such as playing through injury.
I would do it myself, but I don’t know where to access a spreadsheet of all the relevant data except to make it myself, which involves going through game logs and day by day player stats.
Maybe there’s something similar? Anyone know?
The gap in WAR between Goldschmidt and Rizzo is the same as the gap between Rizzo and Lucas Duda. Goldy has been better in all the traditional counting stats, and has sizable advantages in the triple slash numbers, grades out as a better defender and a better baserunner. Seems like an awful lot of weight was placed on sequencing.
It’s not just sequencing, but also “high leverage performance”. Rizzo hit very well in 77 high leverage situations in 2015, but it was mostly BABIP driven (a BABIP of .408 despite a pedestrian LD rate).
I’d definitely have Goldschmidt ahead of Rizzo.
I think you want to strip out sequencing and BABIP when you want to get at true talent level, but not when you’re sizing up performance – i.e., what a guy DID do as opposed to what he CAN do. By that logic you have to give Rizzo credit for when his hits came and not necessarily how he came about them, which is a perfectly legit reason for placing him ahead of Goldschmidt on your MVP ballot.
If they were close, that might be a solid tiebreaker. But even then, Goldschmidt is 1 slot behind Rizzo in RE24. Rizzo is in 3rd in the NL and Goldy in 4th. The gap is miniscule. That tiny gap can’t possibly outweigh Goldschmidt being better across the board.
A player could have a high BABIP and be earning it if he’s spraying balls all over the field, although that skill might not be repeatable for him. For instance, Brian Dozier is all of sudden hitting line drives to all fields, I’ll give him credit for that, even though normally he’ll just be popping up and pulling grounders.
The fact that Rizzo’s better high-leverage performance was due to BABIP is a red herring. Even if he stuck out less, or homered more, one could still raise the same objection, which is basically that a season’s sample of that split is not big enough to judge anything, and that no one has ever convincingly demonstrate that it even makes sense to look for that as a skill.
Thank you. My son never gets the respect he deserves. Lucas Duda for NL MVP!
Notice no Cards on any of these lists, and at least 2, sometimes 3 Cubs. Notice this because when Matheny gets ignored for manager of the Year, hopefully you’ll realize that it’s a joke.
As for this list, Kris Bryant is way too high. For a team with 3 MVPs, and a possible manager of the year, they didn’t win as many games as the Cardinals.
And as much as I like Goldy, I consider AZ a real hitter’s dream. Colorado light. That should be a consideration. Goldy and Rizzo are nearly identical on the road this year, while Goldy is much better at home ( consistent with park factors ).
wRC+ is league and park adjusted, and Goldschmidt has a 14 point lead on Rizzo.
Agree, way way too high on Bryant. .381 BABIP and 31% K% and a wRC+ that’s not as good as some of the other names on this list. He’s given them good defense, but then why not Heyward or Pollock if that’s the case? Also imo Rizzo’s been better for the Cubs this year.
BABIP and K% don’t matter for MVP. That’s not why Bryant’s not going to win it, of course, but MVP isn’t an award for whose season stats are most sustainable.
The joke is that an 89 win team based on their actual baseruns performance sequenced their way to 100 wins and the fan base thinks they are the 27 Yankees. Don’t get shocked when they soon get exposed.
The problem I have always had with giving pitchers the MVP is that its not really a fair fight because pitchers are almost always going to be more valuable then a hitter. They have far more impact on the outcome of games they play then a position player does. They are just inherently more valuable. So I fear that eventually we are just going to have nothing but pitchers winning the MVP/CY every year and no award for position players.
Its a bit like goalies in hockey. A goalie is pretty much always the most valuable player on any team. They have far more impact on who wins and loses then a position player so pitting goalies against players for MVP is not really level ground.
Life’s not fair.
But at most pitchers impact what 20% of games, and 15-17% of total innings played, and that is generous. That severely limits how valuable they can be.
Taking this one step further….
Harper has 642 PAs and was involved in 309 plays in the field, so Harper impacted 951 PAs.
Kershaw (for example) faced 877 batters and was involved in 53 plays in the field, so Kershaw impacted 930 PAs.
The point that most people miss with this argument is that (a) the difference isn’t that big anymore between BF and PAs and (b) there really is no difference when you account for a position player’s much-larger defensive contribution.
Now you can go down the rabbit hole of NL pitchers hitting, but that’s a dogmatic discussion not a practical one. Further, even if you want to add all of Kershaw’s batting PAs you’d get to 1008, which is still not that different from Harper.
Aren’t you double counting the 53 plays in the field? If someone hits a ground ball to Kershaw, that’s only 1 PA, not 2.
And Kershaw this year, if I got this right, has created 1 run above the average pitcher while batting on baseball reference. So its just not a very big deal. In the last four years he’s been between 4 and 6 though. That’s non-trivial, but this year is pretty trivial.
Taking it two or three steps further…
Rizzo has 683 PAs and was involved in 1,423 plays in the field, so Rizzo impacted 2,106 PAs.
Posey has 611 PAs and was involved in… err… a lot of plays in the field and with opposing batters.
What were we talking about again?
wouldn’t you also say that when harper drives in a run, he’s impacting those runners as well?
or when someone drives him in? if he’s not on base, there’s no run scored – but he wasn’t at the plate batting.
Those53 plays Kershaw was involved with in the field are already counted among the batters he faced, so he only impacted 877 PAs, right? I think this underscores the impact of the evolution in distribution of innings in Shirtless George’s observation. It seems that today’s pitchers very rarely impact as many plays as position players do.
on the double-counting, no — because the assumption here (and an assumption that underpins WAR, I believe) is that batting, pitching and fielding are discrete aspects of the game.
on the differences between positional “chances” — yes, obviously the weight of a fielding chance is different than that of a PA / BF and obviously the weight of chances at different positions is not equal… but you guys know that. I was simply trying to illustrate in a non-complex way that comparing a batter’s PAs and a pitchers BF doesn’t tell the whole story.
They have far more impact on games they start, which is about 20% of the games played in a season. I think the majority of fans and voters consider position players are inherently more valuable for this reason.
Starting goalies don’t play once every 5 games. WAR tallies suggest that the most important player is often (and likely most often) a position player.
And the MVP should be a position player, always.
Given that 570 WAR is assigned to hitters and 430 WAR is assigned to pitchers, hitters are actually inherently more valuable than pitchers. This 57/43 split exists because pitchers just contribute “defensively”(except for negligible hitting contributions from NL pitchers), whereas hitters contribute offensively and defensively.
This demonstrates that WAR assumes that position players are collectively more valuable than pitchers, but roster’s usually have fewer pitchers than position players. Of course, we’re not all that interested in bench players and relievers when we’re looking at MVP discussions, but if we assume 11 pitchers and 14 position players, then we’d get a 440/560 split if they were all equally valuable. Given that teams average more than 11 pitchers these days, it’s probably clear that the average position player is worth more WAR than the average pitcher, but the distribution of innings among pitchers may be different than the distribution of PA and fielding chances among position players.
To make a long story short – too late – your point is a good one and probably mostly true, but a bit reductive as it ignores some significant factors.
They have more impact on fewer games. There’s a balance there somewhere.
The problem I have in giving pitchers the MVP award is that pitchers already have a “best pitcher award”.
The hitters actually do have a best hitter award, it’s called the Hank Aaron Award. The MVP is for both pitchers and hitters, and is stated on the ballot even though the mouthbreathers choose to ignore that fact.
I mean, ultimately, WAR is intended to be calculated absolutely. So, while obviously I’m not saying you should just look at WAR and be done with it, at the same time it provides a good baseline for how valuable players of a certain type generally are. There is no reason to think it is biased towards pitchers or hitters. So, if what you said was true, you would expect pitchers to have much higher WAR than hitters, but they don’t. Just by WAR, I would think a hitter would be the MVP about 70-80% of the time.
If only we had a stat that measured the total value of a player on the same scale regardless of position. Then we’d finally be able to answer whether pitchers are inherently more valuable than hitters.
Really enjoying (and learning a lot from) these fangraphs posts. Is there a cheat sheet available that explains the arcane but illuminating categories you reference? Thanks!
Have you checked out the Glossary at the top right?
Is it fair to assume that the reason you left Cespedes off this ballot is because you are only counting the stats he posted in the NL?
Because one can make the case to include his AL performance as well, and if you do, he’s 2nd only to Harper.
“2nd only to Harper”
well, and also 2nd to Kershaw.
and also 2nd to Arrieta
and also 2nd to Votto
and also 2nd to Goldschmidt…
but you know, Mets fans should get something shiny too, right?
I guess you could argue that given your parameters, but “2nd to Harper” is far from a given. Every hitter on this list had a higher wRC+.
Cespedes had 427 PA in the AL and 241 in the NL with four games to play. Assuming you’re pooling the stats, why do you choose to assign them all to the league where he had 36% of his PA as opposed to the league where he had 64%?
Exactly. Cespedes has a better case for AL MVP than NL MVP, unless you let narrative trump all else.
You said Trump. It’s a disaster.
I’m a Mets fan and absolutely love what Cespedes did as a Met. It’s not out of line to attribute the Mets being in the postseason largely to Cespedes.
That said, Cespedes is not the MVP. He’s not an MVP candidate. He’d fall somewhere in the 11-20 range, but Dave’s list is spot on. Let’s love him for what he is and not pretend he’s better than that.
To me, an intriguing down-ballot guy that is not mentioned in the article or in the comments so far is Madison Bumgarner, who provides total WAR over several of these guys, and also arguably has a little extra value because he gives the Giants a legit extra PH bat off the bench on days he doesn’t start.
I’d put him on the ballot, probably 9th or 10th, just as a way of saying pitcher hitting and defense matter.
1. Harper, 2. Goldshmidt, 3. Votto, 4. Posey, 5. McCutcheon, 6. Arenado
Arenado?! LMAO
Arenado had a great season no idea how he deserves a LMAO when other non playoff team players are on that list. Also before you scoff at his 41 HR’s he hit more on the road than at Coors. Also on top of his great season at the plate he is looking like a near lock for his 3rd straight gold glove.
I wouldn’t put Arenado 6th, but if he were 8-10th I would have no qualms with that. That guy can field like no other NL 3B I’ve seen since Rolen and he’s got tons and tons of power. The low OBP (and coors?) is what’s holding him back from being an elite player IMO.
Why not? One of the best offensive performances in the league along with GG at 3rd. Not his fault he plays at Coors.
Even if you double his away stats (Not fair unless you do it to every player), he’s at .255/.293/.531 with 42 home runs, 34 doubles, and 106 RBI with stellar defense.
The biggest problem you just posted is that atrocious .293 OBP, holy hell that’s bad.
I mean, that’s a .824 OPS, which is… good, but not typically what you expect from an MVP. And that’s biased towards Arenado, since his overall line in Coors is not much better, which actually takes away from his value because offense is worth less in Coors (essentially the same amount of offense contributes to less WPA). And, OPS is biased towards slugging, in that it weights OBP and SLG equally, when OBP is actually more valuable.
So, in other words, you chose the most charitable possible way to frame his stats, which is nice, but not really a good methodology to figure out who actually added the most value.
I heard McCutchen is pretty good too.
Is there a stat floating around out there that represents the % of team WAR an individual player contributed?
No, but you could calculate it if you really wanted to. But I fail to see how that would be in any way meaningful to the discussion.
Odubel Herrera for MVP!
Really? I’m obviously not advocating that this is the end all of stats, but I think it adds something to the discussion of ‘value’ to see that the Nationals batters put up 19 total WAR, and 9.5 of that was Harper alone. It’s almost like a ‘how bad would this team had been if you replaced their best player with a replacement level player’ argument, which I at least think is interesting.
Obviously just doing a strict % would be silly, because a mildly above average player on a crappy team would have a high percentage.
> how bad would this team had been if you replaced their best player with a replacement level player
Isn’t the the point of WAR? Seems to me you can get this without the %.
Pretty easy to figure. A team of replacement players wins about 48 games (last I heard, it may change a little over time). So team wins – 48 = total team WAR.
Pitchers are usually ignored during MVP discussions not because they are more or less valuable than position players, but because the MVP is about generating story lines, and the Cy Young story lines already give attention to pitchers. Basically, they already have a place where excellence and relative greatness can be discussed, so it seems unfair to hitters to nudge into their time as well. It’s only when a pitching line is so extraordinary a story (Kershaw) that this changes, and I think that’s about right.
On the mark.
I think this is right, and I also think that, to some extent, a different award is nice to have because pitchers and hitters aren’t really playing the same game.
We really only have two high-profile baseball awards, the MVP and the Cy Young. If a pitcher wins the MVP award, then the guy who was the best in the league at hitting during that year gets nothing, and I think that detracts from the fun of postseason awards. We want to argue about who’s best at A and who’s best at B, and it rubs me the wrong way when the guy who’s best at A gets the B award while actually being terrible at B.
It’s sort of like having a reliever win the Cy Young. In my opinion, it’s wrong because relievers aren’t doing the same thing as starters.
I’ll admit to being a bit of a homer, and I knew you gave Heyward an “honorable mention”, but it would be nice to see some more love for him and Matt Carpenter. Those two guys held the Cardinals offense together and lead the team to the best record in baseball while most of the rest of the lineup struggled or got injured. Carpenter’s transformation into a power hitter (his ISO was right in line with Rizzo and Votto this year) has been particularly impressive.
What lead the Cardinals to the best record in baseball was their 80% strand rate.
Their incredible good luck on the pitching mound for 5 months is what got them the best record in baseball. I’m not saying they don’t have talented pitchers, but every pitcher in the rotation for them had a much lower ERA than FIP for much of the season, and all still do except Martinez’ ERA and FIP are actually close together now.
It’s pretty amazing to see so many SP in one rotation all put up 75-83 LOB%. Looking historically, the Cardinals SP this season has put up a 78.9 LOB%, which is FOURTH going back to 1914. For recent teams, I see the 2014 Reds, 2011 Phillies, 2014 Orioles, and 2013 Reds in the top 30, but all behind the Cardinals of 2015.
This makes me wonder how much longer it can/will hold.
I’m not sure FIP is the right metric to use here, b/c when sizing up the Cardinals’ run prevention talents you WANT to include the defense behind the pitchers.
As for strand rate – yes – unsustainably high (over X trials, anyway – who knows if they can pull rabbits out of their hats for 3 more weeks or so). When you factor out sequencing, their base runs is more in line with the Pirates and Cubs (actually tied with Pirates, two wins behind the Cubs).
All in all, though, I’m not sure how relevant all that is for an MVP discussion. Sure, the Cards’ LOB% is crazy high and totally unlikely to last, but their pitchers did indeed strand those runners. Even if that’s a byproduct of luck, it has to be tallied up, in the same way a hitter with an unsustainably high BABIP must (retrospectively, anyway) be given credit for those lucky hits that fell in.
Rather than insisting the Cardinal run prevention is due to luck, a more intelligent approach would be to try and find the reason. In one word, Molina. If you would watch every Cards’games as I do you would observe the Cards catcher’s ballsy pitch calling. And not just pitch selection but location. He is the principle reason the Cards’ pitchers prevent runs.
What the hell is ballsy pitch calling? Is this a thing?
I shouldn’t have to explain this but since you chose to question my comment I will. Ballsy, for wont of a better term suggests unconventional pitch calling and location. Be it consecutive fastballs in the same zone, or multiple calls for breaking balls.
Plus the Cards employ a different pitching strategy than most teams. Their pitching to contact teaching is often misunderstood. It is more complex than just challenging hitters. It does result in more base runners especially with no or one outs. It is the nature of the philosophy. But once runners are aboard the process changes. Then they don’t give in to hitters, pitch around better hitters, and focus on minimizing runs through innovating pitch calling and defensive strategies. Proposing their success is due to luck is pure folly. It defies logic that all their pitchers are fortunate in run scoring situations. It is their approach, not Lady Luck smiling on them.
Just for fun I ran the Cardinals LOB% for the 5 years prior to this year. They rank 11th in baseball. I guess Molina’s ballsyness is a new trait he developed?
On the other hand…the Reds must have had really ballsy pitcher/catcher combinations.
Different years, different pitchers. No Waino, which removes your ace who pitches differently, has better command, and his presence would lower LOB stats. Lynn has essentially discarded any breaking balls, and now is emblematic in stranding runners, but walks more. Martinez is learning how to pitch, and in his first full year has applied Molina’s approach excellently. Wacha hasn’t had the command of his 1 1/2 years, resulting in more walks, and as he develops off speed pitches, is learning the approach. Lackey in his first year as a full time starter is the quintessential pitch to contact guy. But his savvy allows him to escape jams, aided by Molina. Garcia, has always been a high pitches per inning guy, but has been better, throwing more strikes, but when ahead always makes hitters chase, sometimes resulting in walks, thus base runners. It is a perfect storm for high LOB stats, but stranding those runners, and with the better defense St. Louis now employs, plus accurate shifting the result is cause of their high LOB% not Luck.
The Cardinals good (and lucky) pitching doesn’t take away from the performance of their position players.
Heyward currently sits 6th in WAR among NL hitters, ahead of McCutchen, Posey, and Rizzo. Carpenter sits even with Rizzo by WAR, and just ahead of Bryant by wRC+. Carpenter also has the second-lowest BABIP among the top-10 hitters despite having the second-highest line-drive rate in the majors this year, so there’s an argument that he’s gotten unlucky.
I’m not actively advocating for them to bump anyone off the list above, I just think that they should be in the same conversation with Bryant/Rizzo/McCutchen/Posey in the bottom half of this list.
Matt Carpenter deserves to be on your list before Posey.
Why?
Carpenter’s OPS is .870, Posey’s is 854. And while I happen to think, that catcher’s WAR is underrated, Carpenter also plays difficult defensive positions.
Park factors were created for a reason. Adjust for ballpark, and Posey’s been the better hitter. Not to mention a better defender at a more important position.
I know Posey plays the hardest defensive position in baseball by far, but Matt Carpenter is also a Major League Baseball player.
#6Org
STOP FLOGGING ME!!
Honestly, I think it’s time to scrap the MVP and replace it with the Honus Wagner award for the best position player in each league. It draws a better parallel to the Cy Young. And I, for one, don’t really like to see one player get both the MVP and Cy Young in the same season.
Though we will miss out on great philosophical arguments about the definition of “valuable.” So, there would be a cost.
Call the award the Nap Lajoie Award, and we can replace the value argument with the “No, His Name Is Not Pronounced La-Joy” conversation.
I agree, but name the award after Ross Barnes. Honus Wagner has enough already.
Totally agree, though I’d call it the Shoeless Joe Award, the Pete Rose Award, or the Barry Bonds Award, just to make people mad.
I think the MVP is a super dumb award in the way it’s named and in the way voters are instructed to vote. I don’t think pitchers should be excluded right now, given the way it’s set up, but I do think it’s set up stupid.
Have a best pitcher award for each league, a best position player award for each league, and then a single best player in baseball award for both leagues combined.
Giving you a vote for the Barry Bonds Award idea.
Boycott that ballot, sports writers!
We have that award. It’s called the Hank Aaron award. It just isn’t a big deal.
That’s for best offensive player.
Or perhaps we just stop ignoring the Hank Aaron award which is already given out to the best hitter…
“Best position player” and “best hitter” are not the same thing. By saying it’s for the “best hitter,” the Hank Aaron Award eliminates defense and position from consideration.
I think Dave gave away his Cy Young vote in the way he listed the pitchers. Should have listed them in alphabetical order and pointed that out if he didn’t want to give it away.
I don’t think he did.
but that might just be because he specifically said he hasn’t made up his mind yet.
#logic
He did list them alphabetically, just by team city and then by first name!
“Kershaw was the MVP last year, we should be able to acknowledge that three pitchers (Kershaw included) having better years than Kershaw did last year belong near the top of this year’s ballot too.”
Kershaw’s per rate 2014 stats were better last year
Yep, 2014 Kershaw was better than all 3 contenders this year.
2014 Kershaw: 21-3, 1.77 ERA, 1.81 FIP, 2.08 xFIP, 10.85 K/9, 1.41 BB/9, 0.41 HR/9, .278 BABIP
2015 Arrieta: 21-6, 1.82 ERA, 2.40 FIP, 2.66 xFIP, 9.24 K/9, 1.94 BB/9, 0.40 HR/9, .248 BABIP
Yes, Kershaw’s rate stats in 2014 were better than this year. But he threw a lot fewer innings. Thus, he’s had a better year this year than he did last year.
Personally, I think Goldschmidt should be at least 3 spots higher. McCutchen, Rizzo, and Bryant had great seasons, but none of them were better than Goldschmidt. Obviously, making the playoffs helps quite a bit in the MVP argument, but Goldschmidt had a hell of a year.
Bryant over Rizzo is crazy, in my opinion.
I think the real debate is whether or not Harper wins it unanimously, pretty sure he will.
I have a hard time seeing a unanimous MVP come from a non-postseason team – heck, the Nationals may not even finish the year with a winning record. Harper will probably still win because there aren’t any other really strong candidates, but we’re talking about the BBWAA here. There’ll be at least a few voters who put someone like Bryant or McCutchen or Kershaw #1 because their teams made the playoffs.
Regarding the batter v pitcher for MVP debate, can any Fangraphs authors address the following if it hasn’t been before: Should pitchers deserve more credit in low-scoring eras like the one we’re in now? Is the opposite true? Or should there be no difference?
Perhaps related questions: does it make sense that total league batting WAR and total league pitching WAR remains the same every year? Or should the balance between batting WAR and pitching WAR change by year?
Perhaps another related question: why has the FIP constant remained basically the same (within about +/-0.1 runs) since 1994 despite large changes in scoring? Or maybe, does it say something that the constant is staying the same?
My intuition is elite pitching deserves more credit when league scoring is high, even if that’s counter intuitive. However, I don’t have a means of demonstrating why statistically. It’s a gut feeling that when it is harder to pitch, e.g. smaller strike zone or juiced balls, exceptional pitching is that much more valuable. Conversely, when it is harder to hit as it is now with the expanded strike zone, batters who excel should get more credit than they currently do.
Not a Fangraphs author, but I’ll take a stab at your questions.
Pitchers deserve, and are given, more credit for putting up the same stats when offense is higher. Pedro’s sub-2 ERA in the steroid era was more impressive than Greinke’s and Arrieta’s this year. I’m not sure why you think this is counter intuitive; I think most people would agree with you.
I’m not certain about your question regarding the split between batting and pitching WAR. Perhaps the balance should be different from year to year, but I think you would need to have a good reason to do so. Lacking that good reason, it seems natural to keep the split the same.
The FIP constant remaining the same since 1994 just means that it is a good formula. It means that the decrease in scoring lately can be traced back to more strikeouts, fewer walks, and fewer home runs, rather than to some arbitrary constant getting smaller.
I could be wrong, but I assumed the question was in reference to ERA-, as in, would a 80 ERA- be more valuable when the scoring is lower? Obviously Pedro’s year with the 1.74 ERA is better than Greinke’s 1.68 ERA or Arrieta’s 1.82 ERA or Kershaw’s 2014/2013 1.77/1.83 ERA campaigns, but Pedro’s season’s dominance is also reflected in his ~35 ERA- that year.
Maybe when I say counter-intuitive, I’m referring to the thinking of award voters the last half century. There’s a bunch of pitchers who have won MVPs…in the 60s, 80s, pre-94 90s, and now the 10s. All are notable as low-scoring eras. Maddux, Pedro, and Randy didn’t win one. I agree with you that most people HERE would align with our thinking, but voters have gone the other way.
Maybe where I’m headed is this: Pedro and Kershaw produced very similar three true outcome results at their peaks, but it was much harder to strike batters out and avoid walks in Pedro’s day because of the change in strike zone. If Kershaw was transported to 1999, his numbers should regress as that low strike becomes a ball. I think there’s some missing credit for this difference.
The FIP constant probably stays the same because the change in league scoring shows up in a way that is captured by FIP, so it adjusts naturally.
One big feature of the offensive decline is that strikeouts are up. FIP includes strikeouts, and goes down as strikeouts go up. So if league ERA goes from 4.00 to 3.80 due to increased strikeouts, we might expect league FIP to also go down in similar measure.
Harper has 21/41 HRs against the Phillies/Marlins/Braves. Also, 47 of his 96 RBIs and 51 of his 117 runs scored have come against those three AAAA teams. If there was a bumslayer MVP Award, he absolutely would deserve it, hands down. But if we’re looking for a reason why the Nats have underperformed their expected win total based on BaseRuns and other metrics, this is surely it. It’s likely the Nats would have won a similar amount of games against these three terrible teams even if Harper didn’t exploit their terrible staffs for HUGE numbers in 2015. Other than that, he’s been pretty average against real pitching.
Does destroying bad pitching help your team win games? Of course. But not at the rate his WAR total from 2015 would suggest.
No, let’s not throw out 35% of his games played because they were selected to have 1/2 of his HRs. His OPS was over 1.000 for 10 of his 14 NL opponents (and 3 of 5 AL opponents). He hit against everyone.
Not unfair comments by Jason – he had just 3 HR and 6 RBI against the Mets in 16 games. He came up very small in his biggest divisional games.
Of course he’s still MVP and probably anonymously so, but it is not without flaws.
Anonymous doesn’t mean what you think it means.
3 HR is 16 games is not far off his seasons pace, and 6 RBIs in 16 games tells you nothing at all. I mean, 16 games tells you nothing at all either.
Werthless, what do you think his numbers would look like if he traded in 120 ABs against those AAAA guys for games against the Cubs/Cardinals/Pirates staffs in the NL Central? What do you think Rizzo and Bryant’s numbers would look in the NL East? Or Goldy or Trout or Miggy? I feel like to be the MVP, you should probably have to get to at least 50 RBIs against MLB-caliber teams, but, hey, maybe I’m asking too much. I think he’ll improve against top-flight SP as his career progresses, but right now he’s not there.
BTW, he’s also been terrible in his career against Jose Fernandez and Cole Hamels, the only real SPs those specific teams were trotting out this season. He’s totaled all of 1 RBI in 41 career ABs against those two.
50 RBIs against MLB caliber teams? Are you joking? I assume you hold Votto’s lack of RBIs against him, too. As I said before, Harper hit well against everyone.
Are you also tossing out Rizzo’s 9 HRs against the Reds and Brewers? Do Bryant’s league leading 195 (and counting) strikeouts disqualify him, too? Because if we’re looking for a perfect season, you will be forever disappointed.
Votto’s refusal to adjust his OBP-centric approach in RBI situations will always be a detriment to his potential MVP candidacy.
Just a quick perusal through Harper’s game-by-game logs, through the first two months of the season Harper hit a grand total of 7 HRs not against the Phils/Braves/Marlins.
Bartolo Colon
Rubby de la Rosa in a game they trailed 10-2
Shawn Kelley in a game they led 7-0
Dale Thayer in a game they led 7-3
Nathan Eovaldi in the 1st
Kyle Hendricks wind-aided HR (that was the one you saw him mouth “wow” when the ball left the yard after he slammed his bat after contact)
Jon Lester (same deal … according to HR Tracker, these two wind-aided HRs against the Cubs averaged 360 feet … it’s 368 to the power alley at Wrigley)
Again, all of these accomplishments obviously have some value. But if we’re looking for reasons why a team with that kind of pitching staff and the slam-dunk MVP is hovering around .500, it’s not that difficult to figure out why.
Your problem is that you are evaluating an MVP candidate on game logs and your memory. You want to throw out a third of his games. You assert that a player’s teammates should affect his candidacy. You want to back out individual outcomes because they were wind-aided.
I recommend that you take a step back and examine the masterpiece. This is the best offensive season since Bonds/Pujols in 2003.
And your problem is understanding that baseball is not played in a vacuum. Context and situation matters. That’s why despite Harper’s monster season, he’s still only fifth in WPA.
Bonds’ 2003 WPA was 8.02, with Delgado second in baseball at 6.07. Albert was third at 5.93. Bonds’ big season was actually 2002, in which his WPA was an astonishing 10.56, with Vlad coming in 2nd at 6.73. And Pujols’ best season was in 2006.
On FG Clutch rating, Bryce Harper is literally THE WORST ranked qualified hitter of 2015, with a -2.8 ranking. He’s tied with Marcus Semien, and third worst is Justin Upton all the way down at -2.29. To put this season on the same pedestal as the great Bonds and Pujols seasons from the previous decade is outright lunacy. Garbage-time HRs + bumslaying doesn’t equal GOAT.
Harper has a “low” WPA because he hasn’t had as many big opportunities as the other top players. His WPA/LI, which puts all players on an even field opportunity-wise, is first in baseball by a huge margin.
WPA/LI is basically RAR for offense reincarnated. The fact remains that when given an opportunity in actual high-leverage situations that actually took place, no qualified MLB hitter did less with those opportunities in 2015 than Bryce Harper, your 2015 NL MVP.
Jennifer Lopez totally wants to have sex with me. Oh, sorry, after Jason’s comment I thought we were just making shit up.
Pssst. Jason. Votto and his OBP-centric approach has already won one MVP.
per BBref, Harper has a 216 OPS+ against sub-.500 teams and a 181 OPS+ against teams +.500….
Votto is 181 / 186
Goldy is 174 / 175
Rizzo is 119 / 187
While you might suggest that his split is different than the others (+35 against bad teams), you cannot argue with the fact that he is basically in-line with the others against good teams.
I’m spitballing here, troybruno, so indulge me, if possible. I tried to look up the average MLB ERA in 2015, but couldn’t find it. But the White Sox and Yanks are Nos. 15-16 with a 3.98 and 4 ERA, respectively. Is there an option to search for Harper’s numbers against sub-4 ERA pitchers, roughly above average hurlers based solely on ERA? If so, would you mind posting them here? I know it’s kind of a crude look at the numbers, but it could be a starting point for understanding Harper’s 2015 season, at least.
You would need to know their ERAs without facing Harper for both the below average and the above average group. Not only that but every hitter in baseball hits better off of bad pitchers.
This is true of all these guys. The bottom half of each NL Division is horrible: Phillies/Marlins/Braves; Reds/Brewers; Rockies/Padres. You’re splitting hairs here.
Waiting for the AL ballot. Donaldson and Trout are basically tied both in fWAR and bWAR.
Trout was the superior hitter, not by a large margin, but still.
Donaldson looked like the more complete and consistent player. It just feels like he’s the “moral” MVP.
Donalson will probably win the award, but the race is closer than I thought it would be as the season ends.
Interesting that no one talks about BBPro, where Trout leads Donaldson by a huge 2 WAR. Seems to me that when they’re so close at the other two sites, BBPro might be considered a tie-breaker.
Trout definitely the better hitter, by all value metrics. Donaldson is the more complete player if it’s accepted that his defense was better, I just don’t know how reliable defensive metrics are for what still amounts to a fairly small difference ( < 1 WAR). They're about equal in baserunning, though Trout was much better for the early part of the season, then for reasons I still don't understand, started getting caught on most of his steals, stopped trying, and his UBR also declined.
If Trout loses, it will go back to his August swoon, which may be a sign of inconsistency, or maybe he really was playing hurt.
I was just curious why it is that you only get to vote on one award? Does fangraphs just get one ballot and you guys split up the different awards? Why wouldn’t you vote on all the awards?
I believe the BBWAA decides which members get to vote on which awards.
So does somebody who works for a traditional newspaper also only get to vote on one award? The BBWAA get to decide which award they vote on? Or do they vote for every award? It seems silly to limit a person to one award every year. Plus then don’t you have potential for dividing the votes to sway an award? For example if a writer in LA only got to vote for the AL Cy Young and a Chicago writer got to vote for the NL CY Young. Couldn’t that potentially sway the award towards Arrieta?
It works the same way for traditional media.
There are two votes per BBWAA chapter per award in each city in the league. Since chapters have way more than two members, this is the way of letting more people vote.
^^^^
Since the argument over the NL Cy Young continues to dominate, even in a thread devoted to MVP, I wonder if anyone will join me in thinking the voting should be changed to make ties easier. Wouldn’t a three-way tie for Cy Young be the best result, given that any one of the three is deserving, and most of us feel no one of the three stands out from the others?
I’d like to see a) it possible to give more than one no. 1 vote; b) a more granular points total, in the tenths (10, 9.9, 9.8, etc.); c) the final award determined not absolutely, but by margin, so that if two or more players are within a certain specified % in point totals, it’s assumed the difference is insignficant, and they both get the award.
We accept that WAR is imperfect, so that a margin of less than 1 WAR doesn’t mean one player is better than another. Why shouldn’t we take the same stand in voting? Is the voting mechanism so perfect that if one player gets a few more points than another, we can assume he was the better player?
Because at the end of the day, the votes are for fun and for drama, and it’s super anticlimactic to have an award vote end in a tie.
Justice is boring to some, I guess.
Justice? You might want to take a look at the non-sports stuff that happens in the world before saying the results of a sports award involves justice.
1. Harper, 2. Goldshmidt, 3. Votto, 4. Posey, 5. McCutchen, 6. Bryant 7. Rizzo 8. Dee Gordon?
Nobody seems to ever mention that Arrieta pitches half his games in a more hitter friendly park than Kershaw or Grienke do. Do you guys agree that this helps Arrieta’s case for Cy Young?
WAR captures just about all of those kind of easily, statistically-detectable considerations like that. Using WAR as a baseline, and combining the various methodologies, the three of them are all basically equal. from there, if you are determined to distinguish between them, you have to look at things you think WAR either doesn’t capture, or take a stronger stance on the methodology you prefer.
The more I read about pitch framing, the more I think BUster POsey is the best player in baseball. My prediction is one day there will be a retroactive recalculation of WAR that includes pitch framing and we’ll find that Posey and not Trout is the best player right now.
POsey is consistently one of the best pitch framers and among catchers he leads in BA by a fair amount, he and Cervelli lead in OBP by a lot, leads in SLG by a lot and consistently is the leader in PA because unlike a lot of other catchers he can play 1B so can get an extra 20-30 games a year by playing there.
For the same reason, you can make the argument that Ausmus was the best defensive player in history. But should players get value for conning the umpire? Should the umpire be part of the game?
Pitch framing is not a Jedi mind trick. It’s receiving the ball in such a way that it gives the umpire a clear view of the pitch, without any extraneous movement that would suggest the pitcher missed his spot. It’s not about confusing the umpire so he calls balls six inches off the plate strikes, it’s about giving the pitcher the best shot at borderline pitches going his way. There is no “con.”
*Ahem?*
If I had a vote I’d give it to Rizzo over Harper. Harper’s the better player by a mile, but context matters for MVP. Rizzo is clutch, and Harper isn’t, and that made it so Rizzo contributed more value to his team than Harper this year.
Given the huge difference in their context-neutral numbers, you’d have to argue that Rizzo is extremely clutch and Harper extremely unclutch to even equate them, and that’s without even getting into how much credit we should actually assign to a player for the way his performance varies by leverage.
I’d given Bryant the nod over Rizzo just from the Cubs (Harper obvious winner). Their lines are extremely similar, and Bryant does it playing 3b or just about anywhere else and provides better value on the basepaths.
Bryant’s really had an amazing rookie year. Even with his K’s.
One of the enduring threads in an MVP discussion is the “most valuable” vs. “best” distinction. Those who believe there’s a difference would tend to pick the MVP only from a legitimate contender, no? In other words, the Nationals with a replacement level player in Bryce Harper’s place would not have cost them the post-season. Of the other top ten in the original list we find teammates (the two Dodgers, the three Cubs)or players from non-contenders (Harper, Votto, Goldschmidt) with the following two exceptions: McCutchen and Posey. In other words, most of the top ten are either not from a season-long contender or were one of two or three that really made their team go. The Pirates without McCutchen and the Giants without Posey might well have hurt their teams’ chances to take things into the final week (or beyond)more than the absence of any other player. Isn’t that part of what we’re discussing when we’re discussing most valuable?
I remember in spring training, when everyone in the world is predicting Kris Bryant will be the Rookie of the Year, this person, Dave, posted a article saying he imagined Soler would be better than Kris Bryant. Now when Kris Bryant put up a great, but not MVP-calibor season, this person, Dave, ranks him higher than Cutch, Goldy, Rizzo. What a joke Dave is!
I know! When I make predictions, I stick by them no matter what happens in reality! Only a joke of a human being would not!
I predict that if Dave Cameron had to pick his MVPs for next season right now, he wouldn’t even stick by those!
Lol @ Harper carrying the dumpster fire on his back. That team has one of he top pitching staffs in baseball and a completely capable supporting staff. Harper hasn’t carried anything except his own stats. I think he deserves the award but he hasn’t carried or led his team anywhere other than the ol shitter.
I think it’s at least worth mentioning Gerrit Cole. Even though they have Liriano and the resurgence of Burnett, I can’t see them winning 90+ without him. That might sound like a silly statement in retrospect, but he’s the clear ace of that staff and sets the tone for the team. Even though the Pirates have a pretty good offense and very nice bullpen, I think a team like the Cubs has enough offensive ability and team chemistry to pull off the magic that still would enable them to succeed without the likes of Arrieta, as completely amazing as he has been.
In the traditonal reasoning of MVP, a main rule of thumb is “would this team be where they are without this player?”, however, and I know this is a huge loophole and not fair to these two players, if you take away either Kershaw or Greinke, the Dodgers will still succeed because they can literally buy anyone they want.
I also don’t think it’s out of the question to put Matt Carpenter in the conversation. As much as I love Heyward and what he brings to the table as an all-around player for the Cardinals, this has definitely been a year of young talent adjusting to the majors for the Cardinals offensively speaking (and pitching even obviously) and Carpenter has stepped up and been the much needed power source that was left by the vacancy of Holliday.
I know I read between the lines a lot in this post and a lot of it is theoretical but, hey, that’s what baseball fans do especially on a site like Fangraphs. Interested to see how next year plays out for the NL Central when Glasnow and Taillon get called up for the Pirates and these young Cubs and Cardinals progress and mature.
Impactful. Hard to be context neutral about that.
The Cardinals are young? I guess when you don’t count all the geezers on the disabled list.
Looks like the Cameron earlier blog (8/27/15) was a bit off. It seems that after all, only the teams with the best records made the playoffs. Not, as he conjectured, that the NL was going to be ripped off with teams with a better record not making the tournament while AL teams with worse records did.
So much for all those wasted words!