The 2016 season is in the books, and the Hot Stove is already heating up big time. Over the last week or so, we’ve used granular data to evaluate the performance of qualifying starting pitchers in both leagues. Today, we begin to turn our head toward the position players.
Tonight, the results of the voting for the AL and NL MVPs will be announced. In the NL, Kris Bryant will likely win in a landslide, as he was the league’s best player, played on the league’s best team, and put up big numbers in the categories that get the most attention. Daniel Murphy and Corey Seager also had terrific years, but I’d be surprised if either got more than a handful of first place votes. And when Bryant wins, everyone will mostly nod along in agreement, as the process will have worked to select the right candidate.
In the AL, though, it’s going to be a different story. Mookie Betts is probably going to win, and instead of celebrating the accomplishments of one of the best young players in the game, there is going to be outrage. There is going to be yelling. There is going to be anger and frustration. Twitter is going to be a dumpster fire, even more than usual. Because once again, Mike Trout is going to finish second, and the best (human-sized) player we’ve ever seen is going to say something nice about an inferior player who got rewarded for having better teammates again.
And then there’s going to be the same arguments that got trotted out every year. “It’s the Most Valuable Player Award, not the Best Player Award”, they’ll say. And then people will point out that it’s a distinction without a difference, and back-and-forth things will go until everyone gets distracted by a trade or something. And then we’ll do all this again in another 12 months, since the Angels don’t look like they’re really in any kind of position to put Trout in the playoffs. And round and round we’ll go.
Tonight, we could be celebrating the fact that we’ve had the privilege to watch a guy who has outgrown the Mickey Mantle comparison. We could be talking about the obvious greatness of one of the very best baseball players who has ever lived. We could be collectively thankful that we happen to be alive at a time where everyone gets to watch Mike Trout play, to see what an all-time great in his prime looks like.
But unless things have changed more rapidly than we currently think, we’re going to end up debating the meaning of the word valuable, and congratulating Mookie Betts for having the good fortune to be drafted by a team that has other good players too.
| 10:28 |
: good morning (for me)
|
| 12:01 |
: Jorge Soler for Wade Davis? Who says no first
|
| 12:02 |
: In the past, I would have said the Cubs. But now? Seems like it could happen, particularly if the Royals add another arm, even if it’s an arm that might relieve.
|
| 12:02 |
: Thoughts on a Valbuena-Pearce platoon for the Jays?
|
| 12:03 |
: At first-slash-right field with Smoak heading to the bench some? I dunno if Valbuena can play the outfield. I bet the other half of Pearce is an outfielder. Right now it’s Pillar/Carrera/Pompey/Upton and that squad could use an upgrade.
|
| 12:04 |
: Opinion on Matt Strahm?
|
Mike Berardino of the the St. Paul Pioneer Press had an American League Cy Young Award vote this year. He filled out his ballot as follows:
I respect Berardino’s ballot. As a matter of fact, I applaud it — and not only because he placed the three starters in the same order I would have. That’s a secondary consideration. Far more meaningful is the fact that he included both Zach Britton and Andrew Miller, and not just one of the two.
In a stunning development, the results of a BBWAA awards vote have generated massive controversy in the baseball world. Who could have seen that coming? A shocker to be sure!
Despite failing to receive the most first-place votes, Rick Porcello has edged out Justin Verlander to win the American League Cy Young Award. The full results of the balloting can be found here. Porcello beat Verlander by just five points, 137 to 132. That’s as tight a race as you’re going to see. It was largely due to the fact that while Verlander got 14 of the 30 possible first-place votes, Porcello received 18 second-place votes, and Verlander was left entirely off of two ballots.
Every year, a discussion of the definition of “value” inevitably comes up in the context of the MVP awards. That discussion is particularly prominent this year with Mike Trout, who was inarguably the best player in the American League, unlikely to win the award because his team sucked. The anti-Trout side of the argument goes: the MVP is for the most valuable player, and you can’t be that valuable if your team didn’t win anything.
But value goes both ways. If the Angels would have had the same season result – no playoffs – with or without Trout, the same can be said for, say, the Cubs and Kris Bryant. Bryant or no Bryant, the Cubs almost certainly would have won their division and probably would have still held the National League’s best record. Bryant, however, is likely to be announced tonight as the NL MVP, whereas Trout will probably get a fourth (!) consolation prize. Bryant wasn’t really all that crucial to his team’s success; his value is diminished by the fact that his teammates didn’t need him!
Now, that argument might sound silly, but I don’t know that it’s that much sillier than the argument against Trout. Taking the word “value” literally, the question becomes: who was most important to their team’s success? If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of value, isn’t that what you’re really asking?
To that end, I created a way of looking at how many wins each MVP candidate contributed to their specific team. I did this by subtracting each player’s offensive runs created (“Off” on our leaderboards) from their team’s runs scored and adding each player’s defensive runs saved (“Def”) to their team’s runs allowed. I then recalculated the team’s Pythagorean record. The result is a sort of wins-above-average-per-162 statistic, specific to the team, which allows us to assess where on the win curve the team would have been left without the player.
The win curve part is important because it allows for a distinction between a player like Bryant, who makes his team’s Pythagorean record budge from 107 wins to 102, and a player like Corey Seager, whose team goes from 90 to 85 – a much more drastic change in playoff chances.
So here are several top performers from both leagues, sorted entirely unscientifically by what looked to me like the most impressive contribution to their team.
| Player | Team | Off | Def | Wins Added Over Avg | Win Change | WAR |
| Josh Donaldson | TOR | 46.3 | 4.2 | 5.08 | 90.6 » 85.6 | 7.6 |
| Mookie Betts | BOS | 40.7 | 10.6 | 4.48 | 98.2 » 93.7 | 7.8 |
| Francisco Lindor | CLE | 10.8 | 27.7 | 3.97 | 91.3 » 87.3 | 6.3 |
| Robinson Cano | SEA | 30.5 | 3.4 | 3.34 | 87.1 » 83.8 | 6.0 |
| Kyle Seager | SEA | 24.4 | 6.0 | 3.01 | 87.1 » 84.1 | 5.5 |
| Mike Trout | LAA | 67.7 | 0.7 | 7.38 | 80.0 » 72.6 | 9.4 |
| Jason Kipnis | CLE | 14.8 | 9.1 | 2.39 | 91.3 » 88.9 | 4.8 |
| Jose Altuve | HOU | 43.3 | -2.5 | 4.31 | 83.4 » 79.1 | 6.7 |
| Manny Machado | BAL | 23.7 | 15.9 | 4.03 | 83.9 » 79.9 | 6.5 |
| Ian Kinsler | DET | 22.8 | 10.7 | 3.37 | 83.9 » 80.6 | 5.8 |
| Carlos Correa | HOU | 21.1 | 4.7 | 2.68 | 83.4 » 80.7 | 4.9 |
| Dustin Pedroia | BOS | 12.7 | 14.8 | 2.53 | 98.2 » 95.6 | 5.2 |
| Adrian Beltre | TEX | 22.6 | 15.2 | 3.69 | 81.8 » 78.1 | 6.1 |
| Adam Eaton | CHW | 16.8 | 18.0 | 3.66 | 77.9 » 74.3 | 6.0 |
| Brian Dozier | MIN | 31.9 | 2.3 | 3.38 | 65.8 » 62.4 | 5.9 |
| David Ortiz | BOS | 37.1 | -15.2 | 1.50 | 98.2 » 96.7 | 4.4 |
| Miguel Cabrera | DET | 32.8 | -8.4 | 2.44 | 83.9 » 81.5 | 4.9 |
| Gary Sanchez | NYY | 18.5 | 4.9 | 2.55 | 78.6 » 76.1 | 3.2 |
| Kevin Kiermaier | TBR | 8.9 | 13.8 | 2.40 | 76.6 » 74.2 | 3.8 |
| Evan Longoria | TBR | 18.8 | 2.0 | 2.29 | 76.6 » 74.3 | 4.5 |
| Player | Team | Off | Def | Wins Added Over Avg | Win Change | WAR |
| Corey Seager | LAD | 33.9 | 17.5 | 5.51 | 90.4 » 84.9 | 7.5 |
| Brandon Crawford | SFG | 8.4 | 28.0 | 4.07 | 90.2 » 86.2 | 5.8 |
| Justin Turner | LAD | 18.6 | 16.0 | 3.73 | 90.4 » 86.7 | 5.6 |
| Daniel Murphy | WSN | 43.3 | -7.6 | 3.30 | 97.1 » 93.8 | 5.6 |
| Kris Bryant | CHC | 49.1 | 11.0 | 5.57 | 107.7 » 102.1 | 8.4 |
| Anthony Rendon | WSN | 12.4 | 12.9 | 2.67 | 97.1 » 94.5 | 4.7 |
| Neil Walker | NYM | 11.0 | 10.9 | 2.52 | 87.2 » 84.7 | 3.7 |
| Brandon Belt | SFG | 28.0 | -6.0 | 2.23 | 90.2 » 88.0 | 4.4 |
| Buster Posey | SFG | 9.1 | 10.8 | 2.19 | 90.2 » 88.0 | 4.0 |
| Joc Pederson | LAD | 17.2 | 3.3 | 2.13 | 90.4 » 88.3 | 3.6 |
| Nolan Arenado | COL | 19.8 | 8.6 | 2.50 | 79.7 » 77.2 | 5.2 |
| Christian Yelich | MIA | 27.0 | -5.3 | 2.54 | 78.0 » 75.5 | 4.4 |
| Starling Marte | PIT | 20.7 | 1.4 | 2.26 | 78.1 » 75.8 | 4.0 |
| Dexter Fowler | CHC | 25.8 | 2.7 | 2.49 | 107.7 » 105.2 | 4.7 |
| Addison Russell | CHC | -2.4 | 21.9 | 2.38 | 107.7 » 105.3 | 3.9 |
| Anthony Rizzo | CHC | 34.6 | -5.8 | 2.23 | 107.7 » 105.4 | 5.2 |
| Joey Votto | CIN | 45.7 | -18.7 | 3.15 | 68.0 » 64.9 | 5.0 |
| Freddie Freeman | ATL | 45.5 | -7.7 | 4.48 | 67.6 » 63.1 | 6.1 |
| Jean Segura | ARI | 27.7 | -1.0 | 2.62 | 68.6 » 66.0 | 5.0 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | ARI | 34.6 | -10.4 | 2.55 | 68.6 » 66.1 | 4.8 |
For the record, I would vote for both Trout and Bryant. I don’t agree with this line of thinking. This is just another way to look at it, and if you want to make an argument for Mookie Betts, Josh Donaldson, or Corey Seager, it’s a pretty compelling one.
The obvious caveat is that by using Pythagorean record, this method doesn’t measure exactly what happened, it measures what probably should have happened. That’s a whole ‘nother argument to have in regards to the MVP; we see it pop up as well in the Cy Young race with ERA vs. FIP. Additionally, the exact interactions between team and player are more complicated than just adding and subtracting total runs. This method isn’t perfect. But it’s fun to think about nonetheless.
The Cubs won the World Series. I’m sure enough has been made of that. I’m not sure enough has been made of their defense. Or, if you prefer, their hit suppression. Don’t get me wrong, there have been articles about this very topic. But, you know BABIP. By BABIP allowed, the 2016 Cubs were the all-time best. The all-time best, over more than a century. It’s kind of unbelievable what the Cubs pulled off.
Like many statistics, league BABIP changes with the eras. You don’t want to compare raw BABIPs throughout history, just as you wouldn’t want to compare raw strikeout rates, or slugging percentages. I’ve calculated something very simple — the difference between a team’s BABIP allowed and the league-average BABIP allowed. Here’s a table of the top 10 since 1900, and, well, I told you:
| Team | Season | BABIP | League | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cubs | 2016 | 0.255 | 0.298 | -0.043 |
| Reds | 1999 | 0.262 | 0.298 | -0.036 |
| Cubs | 1906 | 0.238 | 0.272 | -0.034 |
| Dodgers | 1975 | 0.245 | 0.277 | -0.032 |
| Yankees | 1939 | 0.252 | 0.284 | -0.032 |
| Mariners | 2001 | 0.260 | 0.292 | -0.032 |
| Dodgers | 1941 | 0.245 | 0.275 | -0.030 |
| Orioles | 1969 | 0.243 | 0.272 | -0.029 |
| Tigers | 1981 | 0.246 | 0.274 | -0.028 |
| Cubs | 1907 | 0.241 | 0.269 | -0.028 |
Ben and Sam banter about four pitchers with a broken bone, then answer listener emails about Ichiro, Bryce Harper, catchers, throwing games, whether players are making the most of their skills, and more.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Ben and Sam reprise their “multiple Andrew Millers” conversation for the final time, banter about the AL Rookie of the Year Award and the NL Platinum Glove Award, and spotlight some of 2016’s most eye-catching indy league stat lines.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
For the second year in a row, I was given the opportunity to cast a ballot for the National League Cy Young Award. For the second year in a row, this was a very difficult task.
Last year, I had to pick between three aces who had historic seasons, finally settling on Jake Arrieta by the tiniest of margins over Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. This year, no pitcher pitched a full season at the level that those three reached a year ago, so this year’s task was more about picking between good-but-flawed seasons rather than trying to decide which great year was the greatest.
And there was no shortage of options. In the end, I strongly considered eight players for the five spots we were asked to rank, and the guys who ended up at six through eight all had very strong cases for spots on the ballot. While the ordinal-rank system will make it look I saw a real difference between the guys ranked #3-#5 and the three notable omissions, the reality is that there was a six car pile-up at the back end of my ballot, and I think you have to split hairs to pick between the three guys who rounded out my ballot and the three guys who just missed.
But, it is an ordinal rank ballot, so let’s go through the ballot spot-by-spot so I can explain my rationale.
