The National League MVP Race Is Wide Open
Two weeks ago, Fernando Tatis Jr. had what looked to be an insurmountable National League WAR-lead. Here’s what our NL position player leaderboard looked like before action got underway on Monday, September 7:
| Name | PA | HR | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 195 | 15 | 181 | 2.5 | 22.8 | 3.5 | 3.3 |
| Mike Yastrzemski | 185 | 8 | 164 | 1 | 16.3 | 0.9 | 2.3 |
| Ian Happ | 163 | 12 | 181 | 0.6 | 17.5 | -1.2 | 2.3 |
| Mookie Betts | 173 | 13 | 171 | 1.7 | 17.5 | -0.5 | 2.3 |
| Trea Turner | 179 | 9 | 172 | 0.1 | 16.6 | 0.5 | 2.1 |
| Manny Machado | 190 | 12 | 142 | -0.4 | 9.7 | 2.7 | 1.9 |
| Trevor Story | 180 | 9 | 127 | 3.5 | 9.8 | 3 | 1.9 |
| Michael Conforto | 179 | 7 | 174 | -0.6 | 16.5 | -2.1 | 1.8 |
| Freddie Freeman | 175 | 7 | 166 | 0.2 | 15.1 | -1.3 | 1.8 |
| Trent Grisham | 187 | 8 | 124 | -0.4 | 5.4 | 5.4 | 1.7 |
| Corey Seager | 154 | 11 | 169 | -1.2 | 12.3 | -1.5 | 1.6 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 134 | 4 | 168 | 0.5 | 12.2 | -1.6 | 1.6 |
| Jake Cronenworth | 135 | 4 | 150 | 0.2 | 8.9 | 1.9 | 1.5 |
| Jesse Winker | 139 | 10 | 166 | 0.2 | 11.9 | -2.7 | 1.5 |
With just three weeks left to go in the regular season, Tatis had a one-win lead. Two weeks later, that lead is gone:
| Name | PA | HR | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 234 | 15 | 149 | 2.1 | 16.8 | 4.1 | 2.9 |
| Freddie Freeman | 231 | 11 | 184 | 0.5 | 25.3 | -1.8 | 2.9 |
| Manny Machado | 229 | 16 | 161 | -1.1 | 16.7 | 3.2 | 2.8 |
| Mookie Betts | 226 | 16 | 159 | 2.2 | 19.2 | -0.7 | 2.6 |
| Trevor Story | 221 | 11 | 130 | 3.9 | 12.4 | 3.6 | 2.3 |
| Mike Yastrzemski | 210 | 9 | 153 | 0.7 | 14.9 | 1 | 2.3 |
| Trea Turner | 226 | 9 | 151 | 1.1 | 15.8 | 0.6 | 2.2 |
| Ronald Acuña Jr. | 171 | 13 | 166 | 1.1 | 15.7 | 1.9 | 2.1 |
| Michael Conforto | 227 | 9 | 164 | -0.5 | 18 | -2.6 | 2.1 |
| Trent Grisham | 226 | 9 | 119 | -0.2 | 5.4 | 6.5 | 2 |
| Paul Goldschmidt | 195 | 6 | 152 | 0.6 | 13.6 | -2.3 | 1.9 |
| Ian Happ | 205 | 12 | 143 | 0.4 | 11.7 | -1.5 | 1.9 |
| Wil Myers | 195 | 13 | 157 | 1.3 | 15.5 | -4 | 1.8 |
| Corey Seager | 202 | 13 | 155 | -1.6 | 12.7 | -2 | 1.8 |
| Kole Calhoun | 204 | 15 | 132 | 0.3 | 8.6 | 1.7 | 1.7 |
| J.T. Realmuto | 171 | 11 | 135 | 2.2 | 9.8 | 2.9 | 1.7 |
What Freddie Freeman has accomplished in the last two weeks has been incredible:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freddie Freeman | 58 | 256 | 1.3 |
| Kole Calhoun | 43 | 239 | 1 |
| Brian Anderson | 58 | 204 | 0.9 |
| Manny Machado | 43 | 227 | 0.8 |
| Jeff McNeil | 47 | 230 | 0.8 |
| Chris Taylor | 50 | 202 | 0.8 |
| Miguel Rojas | 55 | 172 | 0.8 |
| Alec Bohm | 60 | 180 | 0.7 |
| Jurickson Profar | 38 | 193 | 0.7 |
| Travis d’Arnaud | 54 | 182 | 0.7 |
Freeman’s last two weeks would rank 25th for the entire season. If you are wondering if he’s ever done anything like this before, the answer is yes; he’s done it twice:
In 2016 and 2017, Freeman had a couple of stretches that were even better than what he’s done of late. With a career 139 wRC+, Freeman regularly has two-week spans with a wRC+ over 200. He understandably struggled to start the season after having to recover from COVID-19 before things got going. On August 6, Freeman, had an 87 wRC+; he has been fire ever since. Looking solely at WAR at this point in the season, we see Tatis and Freeman on top, with Manny Machado and Mookie Betts close behind. Just three-tenths of a win separate the top four; for MVP purposes, that’s pretty close to deadlock. And Freeman wasn’t the only MVP candidate to start the season slowly. While the leaderboard looks pretty even at the moment, it’s helpful to see how the players got there. We’ll take things two weeks at a time. Here’s where the candidates stood entering play on August 6:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 60 | 176 | 1.1 | 6.9 | 1.1 | 1 |
| Mookie Betts | 49 | 137 | 0.5 | 2.8 | -0.2 | 0.4 |
| Manny Machado | 59 | 73 | 0.2 | -1.9 | 0.8 | 0.1 |
| Freddie Freeman | 52 | 87 | 0.1 | -0.8 | -0.4 | 0 |
Because the 2020 season is so short, those two weeks represent about one-fifth of the season. Here is what the group looked like over the two weeks following August 6:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | EV | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 57 | 212 | 95.3 | 0.7 | 8.8 | 1 | 1.2 |
| Mookie Betts | 59 | 200 | 89.4 | 0.5 | 8.1 | -0.2 | 1 |
| Freddie Freeman | 51 | 205 | 93.7 | 0.1 | 7 | -0.4 | 0.8 |
| Manny Machado | 55 | 133 | 90.5 | -0.7 | 1.6 | 0.8 | 0.4 |
At this point in the season, Tatis had been nearly two wins ahead of his teammate. While Tatis still paced the group, Betts and Freeman were very close to him and were barely distinguishable at the plate from the early frontrunner. Now, here’s the end of August and early part of September:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manny Machado | 53 | 258 | 0 | 10.7 | 0.7 | 1.3 |
| Freddie Freeman | 50 | 189 | 0.1 | 5.8 | -0.4 | 0.6 |
| Mookie Betts | 51 | 157 | 0.6 | 4.3 | -0.2 | 0.6 |
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 55 | 134 | 0.5 | 2.8 | 1 | 0.6 |
Did you miss the part of the season when Machado was just as good as Freeman has been over the last two weeks and was better than Tatis was to start the year? Machado did win back-to-back NL Player of the Week awards so it isn’t as if he went unnoticed, but his slow start meant that he was still nearly a win behind his teammate, and might account for your surprise at just how impressive he’s been.
Now we get to Freeman’s hot streak; we’ll go just a few days beyond two weeks to bring us up-to-date:
| Name | PA | wRC+ | BsR | Off | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freddie Freeman | 75 | 242 | 0.3 | 13.9 | -0.6 | 1.5 |
| Manny Machado | 62 | 180 | -0.5 | 5.9 | 0.9 | 0.9 |
| Mookie Betts | 67 | 141 | 0.5 | 4 | -0.2 | 0.6 |
| Fernando Tatis Jr. | 62 | 80 | -0.2 | -1.7 | 1.1 | 0.2 |
That’s how we ended up here, with four players within a few runs of each other. While another week could provide some separation, voters may very well end up going a bit deeper, basing their decision on other factors. Here’s a quick glance at how those decisions might be made.
Mookie Betts
- For those who value consistency, Betts hasn’t had a down period like any of the other main candidates. His worst stretch came at the beginning of the season and he still put up a 137 wRC+. He’s been excellent all season long.
- Betts also has the advantage when it comes to results. His Win Probability Added is 2.39 this season, which is best among the candidates and second in the NL to Mike Yastrzemski.
- For those who favor the best player on the best team, Betts takes the cake.
Fernando Tatis Jr.
- For those who value Statcast numbers, Tatis is the king. He appears to have been considerably unlucky — though his 149 wRC+ is the worst among the four candidates, his .433 xwOBA is about 50 points higher than his actual wOBA this season. While Tatis is still behind Freeman in xwOBA (Freeman boasts a .464), all the other candidates have a wOBA relatively close to their expected number via Statcast. Given that Tatis’ WAR is in line with the other candidates, only a little bad luck has kept him from being further ahead.
- The all-around crown is debatable this season, with Machado also providing good defense, but Tatis is the only candidate above average with the bat, on the bases, and on defense. He’s played a decent shortstop this season, cutting down on the throwing errors that plagued him last year.
Freddie Freeman
- For those who value how a player finishes, there isn’t going to be a better candidate than Freeman — he’s been crushing the ball over the last few weeks.
- On offense, Freeman has been the best hitter in the NL this season. His 185 wRC+ tops the league, he’s got more walks than strikeouts, and his .346/.464/.634 line tops the league in average and OBP with his slugging behind only that of Juan Soto, who has played 15 fewer games.
Manny Machado
- I’ll be honest, Machado is in a really tough spot. He’s finishing strong, but not as strong as Freeman. He’s a very good all-around player, but he’s probably behind his teammate in that regard. He rates well in the traditional offensive categories, but outside of homers, he’s behind Freeman. Machado has arguably been the best player in the NL this season, but in a dead heat, it’s difficult to find factors to put him over the top. If Machado is going to win, he’s going to have to crush it for one more week.
I don’t envy the voters who will have a very difficult decision to make. It can be hard to separate candidates over the course of a 162-game season, but 60 games provides even more ambiguity. There’s still 10% of the season left to play — maybe that makes a difference, but the backslide by Tatis over the past few weeks has turned what looked to be a landslide into a real race.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Normally, with five games left I would think this is a totally reasonable question to settle today. But since those 5 games represent approximately 1/12th of the season you could see one guy pull away if they are particularly good (like how Freeman has been playing) or fall back if they keep playing like they have (like how Tatis has been playing).
The more interesting story (which I assume Craig will release a story about tomorrow morning) is the AL race, where Shane Bieber has been awesome (but is a pitcher), Anthony Rendon and Mike Trout are turning in great years (for a non-contender), and where voters who want to reward the White Sox for being a great team have two contenders to split the vote (Tim Anderson and Abreu).
There’s an excellent chance that Cleveland skips Bieber’s last start since it’s scheduled for the last day of the regular season. Which will obviously hurt him his overall WAR.
There is absolutely no chance he starts again after tomorrow- with game 1 of the playoffs on Tuesday.
Also Voit carrying the Yankees while Judge and Stanton were out. I feel like their recent hot-streak could get Voit some votes assuming he leads the league in homers.
Voit has been awfully good, but he’s not really a household name. Not that it should matter, but if you don’t have a strong statistical case and you’re not a household name, that’s hard. Jose Abreu’s not that far off on homers and way better batting average / OBP, plus he’s better known.
But I think you are right, that could split even more votes off. This will be a weird award.
JRam is currently leading the AL in WAR. With only 60 games , we could see some massive WAR swings this week. While I don’t think that is what voters vote on entirely, it isn’t unrealistic that someone who isn’t even being mentioned for the award jumps into the lead. Iirc people have gotten 1 WAR in a game before ( or super close, like 0.8) so someone could have a 3 hr game and take over the league WAR lead.
And JRam homered tonight…only made one out in 4 PAs. Anderson and Abreu weren’t horrible but also weren’t lights out, either. It’s wild that a single game or two might put him over the top.
Voit isn’t even the best player on his own team. He isn’t even the best hitter on his own team. If any player has “carried” the Yankees, it’s LeMahieu.
Yeah, Voit’s 21 HRs have barely helped at all.
Did I say that? No I didn’t, learn how to read.
Padres are so fun
I’ve been leaning Mike Yastrzemski since early in this short season, and this article showing his place on the WAR list and his league-leading WPA hasn’t changed my mind. These four candidates play for terrific teams, while Yaz is a stand-out carrying a more borderline team while playing in a tough park for offense.
The Dodgers would be great even without their best position player. On the Padres, it’s hard to tell who is the best position player. And Freeman – well ok, he’s been pretty great. But the Giants would not have even sniffed a playoff race without Yastrzemski.
I think Yaz could easily sneak into this conversation with a good week and a Giants playoff berth. In a way, it would be a perfect bow on this crazy season for *this* Yaz to win an MVP.
So what? Who cares what the rest of the team is like?
Also, WPA is a game-level stat. It makes no sense when you start treating it as a property of individuals.
Completely agree, a player like that on a team that he helps vault into the playoffs should get serious consideration for MVP. That to me is the definition of an MVP; might not be the best player this year, but his VALUE to his team is what matters.
The value Yaz has brought to his team is nowhere near the value someone like mookie/freeman/tatis/machado has. Him being on a worse team around him doesn’t make him more valuable
If his positive play is seen as one of the main reasons the team could actually make the playoffs. Now if you want to argue that the team still isn’t that good and they are only in the playoff race because there are so many more teams than normal that make the playoffs, I could see that. Tatis and Machado on the other hand work to cancel each other out if you want to argue for both.
I mean nowhere near isn’t the right argument either. We are talking about .3-.4 WAR difference. That is certainly *near*
Him not having a better player on his own team does help his MVP argument. You can view him as a dark horse, but through yesterday the stats say his value was close to that of the leaders.
Well, statistically, as this article shows, the value Yaz brought his team is actually very close to those players.
No mention of RE24, either.
Yaz was tops in baseball in RE24 for most of the season. 3rd at the moment.
This stat best represents what a player has produced with the bat in the given situation. It is not hypothetical, it is reality.
Combine that with his league-dominating WPA, and it’s clear that he has produced the most when it has mattered the most.
Simply put, he has been the most productive hitter (and really can’t argue anything out of top 3).
He might not be stellar on defense, but he is not a liability.
Not saying he deserves the MVP, or that I wouldn’t prefer the other players listed on my team. But his accomplishments deserve recognition.
To not even mention him in the article feels terribly unjust.
Every. single. year. Do we have to have this absurd definition of “value” trotted out every. single. year.?
If I buy a $500 TV the last $20 bill I give the cashier isn’t more valuable than all the other ones because it got the TV into the “playoffs” of my trunk.
In your scenario, every $20 has the same value. In baseball, every at bat does not have the same value.
So basically the deciding argument for Yaz is that his co-players suck?
If hypothetically everyone in a lineup was an all star “mvp” level player, none of them would deserve the mvp. Their value is mitigated by how great the rest of the team is.
This is not true.
Only if your concern is “best” player or most “outstanding” player. If your focus is most valuable, then it is very true.
Bluerum, it sounds like you prefer the MVP to be the leader in PPA (Playoff Probability Added).
For me, if you don’t make the playoffs, your individual season doesn’t really matter. How did your play and presence on the team impact your teams push into the playoffs. That is a large part of what defines an MVP to me. I see Best Offensive Player as something very different.
How can Soto not be on this list? He has the highest wRC+ in baseball. It would have to be his defense bringing him down, and defense ratings aren’t as reliable, though he likely would never be mistaken as above-average. I doubt he would win because the Nats are brutal this year, but how can he not even be in the discussion?
Soto missed too much time to make the list. In a normal season, he would likely have made his way into the top 4 by seasons end. With a 60 game season, there just isn’t enough runway.
That’s what I thought initially, but he only has a few less PA’s than a couple of the other players on this list, plus the Nats have 8 games this week. He’s qualified now in PA’s/game, so I would think he’s got enough to at least be mentioned above a few players that are on this list.
Not for the 4 main contenders though. Betts has the least amount of PAs among those 4 at 226. Soto has 58 less PA than that. Had Soto not missed any time he would absolutely be on this list and in the conversation even with poor defense.
would he though, he has almost the same PA’s as Acuña, yet is half a win behind him. If someone is missing from this list based on lack of PA’s its Acuña, not Soto.
If Acuna hadn’t missed any time he might just be the favorite right now. Soto missing time has nothing to do with that.
But if Soto had 13 more games to his ledger with the same hitting line he would be in the conversation of MVP even with his poor defense. I don’t think he would win because of said defense but he would be a viable candidate. WRC+ over 190 is hard to ignore.
Acuna is in the list. By “the list”, I meant the list of about 20 or so WAR leaders. I would absolutely have Soto in my top 10 if he keeps hitting at the same rate for the next week.
My argument was that he should be on the list of those discussed, not that he should be in the main 4 contenders.
Fair enough. Even though Soto wouldn’t be on that list as of two days ago (he was at 1.5 WAR) it is odd they had Realmuto on the list at 1.7 while Ozuna and Dominic Smith were left off at 1.7.
Defensive ratings aren’t as reliable and in only 60 games is even worse. But to throw them out entirely? Also that defensive rating is what is bringing Machado and Tatis up to Freemans level.
That and the dingers.
Just looking at offense, he is 8th in wRC with 42, 14 behind Freeman who leads easily with 56. Soto’s only argument is highest wRC+ among qualified players. That is, to be honest, a stupid way to pick a MVP.
To be fair, it is not even closest to the stupidest way to pick an MVP. It is, however, among analytically informed choices, one of the least compelling.
Yeah, I mean, you could also argue he wins the batting title or somehow he should be rewarded for the World Series. I should have said that to me the best argument is highest wRC+ and that is a dumb way to pick MVP. There are certainly dumber, including “best player on best team.”
If you extrapolate Soto’s numbers for a full 60 games, he still doesn’t quite stack up to the top 4. Hell, Acuña has all of 5 more PAs because of his own missed time and is worth half a win more than Soto himself.
It would be stupid, indeed, if I said he should win the MVP simply by virtue of having the highest wRC+. It is a good stat, though, to measure how good of a hitter they have been. All I said is that he should have been in the list of those discussed, not that he should win, or even be in the top 4.
I don’t get it? Why should he be discussed? He’s not worthy of a 5th place vote. This article was to discuss legitimate candidates and if it left any off then they were not named Juan Soto. His great wRC+ this year can be celebrated in all sorts of ways, but that is outside the scope of this article.
Never mind – I think he was just left off because he wasn’t in the WAR leaders for that particular day when the list was taken. If the list was taken today, he would be in there. I would argue that WAR is also imperfect as defensive stats aren’t as reliable as offensive stats, but I see now why he wasn’t on the list.
The other thing that hurts Juan- he’s not had a great September. No homers and only 48th in fWAR at 0.2. “Only” a 141 wRC+. A good month but not a great one. If he had a devastatingly good September- maybe he’s got a shot.
its also a reality that if you’re literally only going to hit you need to really go crazy doing it to keep up with guys who have hit very well and also provide value in other areas of the game. To overwhelm the league with your offensive value alone while being a defensive and baserunning detriment the way that 2001-2004 Bonds did requires you to hit like, well, 2001-2004 Bonds.
All the games missed hurt him. And the fact that he’s on a losing team hurts him. He’ll get some votes but he won’t be close at all.
I guess a throwaway line about him (and Acuña, presumably) could have been added. But this is not a valid criticism of this post. There is no reason Soto needed to be mentioned.
He won’t be MVP, but Soto’s abbreviated line is pretty impressive. A 203 OPS+ with a 24:33 K:BB ratio – in his age 21 season – is amazing.
I’d go with Freeman at this point. The AL is going to be even tougher to choose, imo.
Freeman should win, but Conforto should be ahead of Tatis given the latter’s swan dive over the last three weeks. Conforto is third in wRC+, and it’s hard for me to grasp the negative defensive component after watching him play this year. He has been really, really good in right field. The Mets lack of a defensive catcher has cost Conforto a couple of highlight-reel-potential outs at home plate.
I am a Mets fan, and certainly biased, and should acknowledge that… and Tatis has been wonderful to watch and has a lot of top-4 finishes ahead of him… but over the first 55 games, I’d put Conforto higher.
(Note also – as a Mets fan, I can’t believe I’m stumping for a Brave, but let’s not forget that Freeman leads the NL in wRC+ after suffering from COVID in a serious way. That part of the story should push Freeman over the top as his performance is as of-the-moment as anything in recent sports memory, in terms of how that story will look in the future, and it makes his performance even more “valuable” in my eyes, however subjectively “valuable” is determined. )
There seems to be a consensus that OAA is better than UZR/DRS, and by a lot. Unfortunately, Conforto has been brutal there. Hard to do conversions but it seems noticeably worse than what UZR says.
In case you’re wondering, the guys who rank best in OAA from a counting perspective (not a rate perspective) are Arenado, Tatis, Robert, and Jackie Bradley Jr. Machado and Betts and Story are a bit above average, and Freeman is neutral. Yaz the Younger is awful, among the worst in the NL (Willy Adames, though, is in a class of his own in his badness–between that, the inflated BABIP, and the crazy strikeout rate, I am pretty certain the Rays are going to try and move him).
OAA and UZR/DRS -do not measure the same things and you should not compare them directly-
OAA is purely measuring the physical ability of players to get to balls based on distance they have to travel. It is not encompassing any other factor in defense, including:
– Better positioning leading to more easy plays
– Outfield throwing & baserunner advancement
– Double plays vs average
– Catcher stolen bases/baserunning
OAA is really great, but it is NOT a replacement for comprehensive defensive metrics and people who choose to use it to the exclusion of those metrics are doing themselves a disservice. It is very informational at what it’s trying to tell you, but it’s fundamentally trying to measure raw player talent and physical ability and very specifically not trying to measure team defensive effectiveness. If one player consistently positions himself poorly in the outfield, making a higher proportion than usual of balls into low percentage plays, but then makes those low percentage plays at an above-average rate, he’ll look good by OAA even though he’s a net negative defensively. Similarly, a player who is consistently positioned to make more plays routine will get less credit because he’s only making easy plays.
Considering that we know there are rather significant gaps between teams in from-the-bench directed player positioning, OAA is far from fully encompassing of defensive performance, and if you’re tossing out the existing metrics to use it exclusively, you’re costing yourself a lot of information that it doesn’t even attempt to provide. When you throw in that it doesn’t even attempt to measure outfielder and catcher throwing (baserunner advancement, outfield assists, SB%, etc), it’s pretty incomplete.
As re: Conforto specifically, my understanding of OAA is that Conforto is effectively penalized for Nimmo’s lack of range in CF and the fact that it leaves Conforto with a LOT of ground to cover. This is one of my concerns with defensive metrics, especially in the OF… how do you measure any one player individually in the context of the relative/strength or weaknesses of the rest of the outfield?
Your understanding of OAA is flawed. That sort of thing might hurt him in other metrics, but it doesn’t hurt Conforto in OAA.
OAA works like this (and you can review extensive tweets by the statcast dudes for details if you want)
Based on the players’ fixed position at the start of the play and the characteristics of the batted ball (distance traveled, hang time, etc), statcast looks at comparable plays and figures out how frequently outfielders (it does NOT DISTINGUISH BETWEEN CF ANF CORNER OF) get from point A to point B in time to catch the ball. It considers how fast, how far and in what direction (left, right, in, back, etc) the player has to go when making these comparisons, since not all distances are created equal (eg going straight back is harder than most other directions)
You are familiar with this number as the Catch Probability, which is NOT the same as the Hit Probability (which just looks at the batted ball and how often similar balls are hits or outs, and doesn’t look at the specific location of the fielder in this case, which is why you see a lot of .900 expected hit probability lineouts to guys who are shifted in exactly the right spot. Catch prob knows where the fielder is, hit prob doesnt)
The player is then credited or decremented a fraction of outs based on whether the play was made. If there is a 20% catch probability and the player makes the play, he gets credit for 0.8 outs (1 out – the average). If he doesn’t, he’s decremented -0.2 outs (0 outs – the average).
Because this is sensitive to where the player actually started (not where players usually start, or typical position, but fixed exact location), this is entirely measuring physical ability and reaction time. So if a player is consistently positioned poorly, making more balls low catch probability, but then uses his physical gifts to make the plays, he’ll pick up a lot of catch probability and therefore OAA. Similarly, a player who is well-positioned and has a disproportionate number of routine plays will only get credited for a very small amount (since the catch prob of most routine plays is north of 95%). OAA is really good at what it measures, which is -fielder talent-. It is not attempting to measure, and it is not good at measuring, actual defensive efficiency. This is why no team OAA metrics exist: Outs Above Average is not TRYING to tell you which teams are good at defense or whether a player made more total outs than usual. And this, again, is outside of the fact that it’s only about plays made and not made, so it doesn’t value outfield arms, etc, in any way – those plays aren’t measured and aren’t included whatsoever.
I forget exactly how they handle plays where 2 guys are both able to make the play, but my rather vague recollection is that guys aren’t penalized for having their teammate make a play on a ball that both of them had a chance at. I believe that in the event of a hit, the player who had the -highest- chance to catch the ball is the one who is decremented for it, so if it’s 15% for Conforto and 35% for his outfieldmate, the other guy would take the hit.
If Conforto is making a lot of plays on balls he hs very low chances of because he’s ranging way into that guy’s area, they would be very low catch probability balls that would not hurt him much individually, and could actually produce the reverse effect (if hes converting them at an above-average rate, he’d accumulate OAA faster than you expect due to having more low-percentage play opportunities than normal to attempt).
OAA is great, but it isn’t a comprehensive defensive statistic and you shouldn’t use it like it is one.
Thanks, very much, for the explanation. What I thought I understood, and now am not sure, is the interrelationship between two fielders. E.g., if I have a weak CF and the RF plays more balls as a result, then he is penalized for balls he doesn’t get to that, with a better CF and more normalized positioning, the RF might not have the attempt but he wouldn’t have the penalty for failing to make the play. Is this false?
If the player has a low chance of making the play then he loses very little for not making it. OAA is completely specific to the situation: if the player is playing 40 feet to the right of where he usually is, and the ball is hit 20 feet to the left, it’s going to judge him on having to travel 60 feet in that direction, and not ‘debit’ him because that’s “usually” an easy play that only requires 20 feet of movement. For him, it’s not an easy play, and he’ll get credit for that if he makes it.
So it doesn’t matter if he’s shaded one way to cover for a bad fielder, etc, he’s being evaluated on his physical ability to get to the ball based on the amount of time and distance it travelled relative to his position.
It’s possible he’d be more likely to make plays in the gap towards that fielder, but he’d also be less likely to make plays in the other direction.
Being positioned badly doesn’t hurt a fielder in OAA, and if he converts difficult plays at an above average rate, it can even help him because he’s got more difficult opportunities than he might otherwise. (eg he ‘converts’ a higher proportion of difficult plays than average, and by being badly positioned, more plays are difficult than they are for others)
The kind of thing you’re asking about is something that has been discussed as a problem for UZR (in that those balls may get categorized as “out of zone”), but it’s not a thing with OAA.
Again the thing to remember with a guy like Conforto that I mentioned above is that OAA for outfielders is for outfielders. The averages are established for all outfielders, and therefore a lot of corner dudes look bad because while they may be an average ‘left fielder’, they aren’t being graded against just left fielders – they’re being graded against all OF, including CF. CF see more plays than the corners, so if you put a guy who is below the overall outfielder baseline in CF, he’s going to rack up negative OAA faster than he would in a corner because he’s responsible for more plays. Balls are not distributed 1/3 between each of the 3 fields, and CF handle the ball more than the others do.
This is why virtually all of the high scorers in OAA are center fielders, because the MLB guys who are CF are on average much more defensively talented than guys who are outfielders generally. You see some guys like Betts show up, but often at lower numbers (betts is +2 OAA this year for instance), because Betts isn’t being compared to other RF, but to a pool of all outfielders that also includes Byron Buxton and the like.
This is really helpful. Thanks, very much.
I should have pointed this out earlier but it’s also relevant for the MVP discussion because if you’re using OAA without accounting for this you’re going to get distorted data about outfielders. For example, Mookie Betts is at 4 OAA vs 6 for Tatis but 4 is double the next-highest RF, and only 13 players have OAA above 0 when playing Right Field. (FWIW there are 15 players above 0 in LF, including another with 4 and one with 3). In contrast, 26 players have OAA above 0 in CF (some players have positive OAA in more than one OF position, like Acuna).
If you account for OAA being based on all outfielders and not specific to position the way other defensive metrics and positional adjustments work, Betts suddenly looks quite a bit better than he does if you’re just looking at the overall OAA leaderboard.
If we were doing positional adjustments for all OF instead of RF/LF specifically, and including CFs in our calculation for the replacement level for RF’s offensively, Betts’ offensive value would increase. Using a positionally-specific standard for offense and a positionally-neutral standard for defense devalues corner OF on both ends.
My understanding is that OAA is superior in many ways because it has a far better way of accounting for shifting. Is that not right?
But the outfield throwing / baserunner advancement makes it less comprehensive, I agree with that.
More importantly: OAA, if I am not mistaken, is much more similar to teams’ internal metrics on defense in how it is calculated (even if the teams use more data than just OAA).
Fun Willy Adames Offseason Selling Point:
Career Home wRC+ (548 PA): 77
Career Road wRC+ (548 PA): 134
I am a Braves homer but I do think it is worth considering a few more aspects for Freeman.
1. Not that the Braves are the only team to essentially avoid any Covid issues (and not that everyone who gets Covid did anything remotely wrong to get it), but his ordeal was a rallying cry for the Braves to take prevention seriously. He also almost got Markakis to opt out which could have also been a benefit to the team.
2. While Betts is the best player on the best team, the Braves have scored the most runs per game (Dodgers or Padres could take over, this is close) and Freeman has been the best player and best hitter in that team. For whatever that is worth.
3. This really isn’t an argument for why Freeman should win but rather why he might win: the divisions are in silos this year. I heard an argument for awarding MVPs by region this year and it honestly makes sense. But that’s not happening. Voters in the East, focused on the teams in the East, have seen less of the Western triumvirate.
4. That Freeman has been able to do this without being able to give hugs to his teammates makes it all the more remarkable.
I do think the last week should matter. It’s the equivalent of almost 3 weeks of a normal season and we don’t just hand out the award normally based on the first 143 games. But if things stay the way they are, I doubt Freeman loses this award.
If the season ended right now, I’d vote for Freeman, but I don’t buy any of these arguments.
1. Contracting an illness does not merit MVP votes, no matter what it inspires one’s teammates to do. And “almost” getting another player to opt out is literally meaningless.
2. The MVP is an individual award; whether a player’s team finished first or third in runs scored is irrelevant.
3. Illogical argument. Why would the “silos” result in more votes for players in the East?
4. Everyone’s had to make sacrifices this year, and there’s no reason to think Freeman’s sacrificed more than the other candidates.
These are the soft factors for when the hard factors end up tied. Also:
1. The line about Markakis was a joke
2. Sure, okay, but you have to break ties somehow.
3. There is one vote for each media market, I believe. The Western media markets are seeing both the Padres, Betts, and Yaz if you want to throw him in there. The only contender in the East is Freeman. If voters favor what they see, the eastern votes all go to freeman and the western votes get split. You should refrain from calling something “illogical” just because you don’t understand it. This was not at all a reason that Freeman should win but rather a reason he would win, as was clearly stated.
4. Also clearly a joke. Dude, are you a robot?
No, not a robot, just someone who didn’t realize you were joking. In my defense, your jokes are not dissimilar to comments I see on The Athletic every day.
How one inspires teammates can have a huge effect on the team. that is a major part of MVP. The effect you have on your team matters, that is what makes you valuable.
Also, I think there is a sentiment that Freeman “deserves” one, not just based on this season, but also on his career where he came close several times.
Betts already has one and Tatis Jr. will get plenty of chances.
Is it a fair way to judge a season MVP award? Obviously not.
But as others pointed out, when it is a close race in a shortened season, every tiny edge counts.
Having said that, his relatively low HR while being a 1B, is going to matter which is why I wouldn’t be so confident.
HR is a lazy way to look at power, his ISO is 10th(nearly identical to Tatis and 2nd* among all NL 1B) in the NL and his SLG is 3rd overall. He is also only tied for 16th in HR so its not like he is lagging behind by some huge margin.
* Dom Smith is 1st but he plays a 60/40 1B/OF
The Dodgers have not had a positive Covid-19 case since entrance testing, so the Braves are not ‘the only team to essentially avoid any COVID issues’.
They might be the only team in their division, but the Western divisions have gone almost entirely untouched, and have only seen a total of like 5 game postponements due to COVID-19 tests, and only had 2 teams have any positive cases at all. The Western division teams had more double-header makeup games from 1 day of protests than they’ve had from coronavirus.
You may want to reread what I wrote. I literally said they were not the only team to avoid Covid problems.
I understand that sites don’t want to publicize other site‘s statistics, but there is another flavor of WAR and in this case it tells an important, different story. Seems weird to leave it out. Betts has a healthy lead.
I wonder what effect Max Fried sitting ever so closely right behind him might have?
However, It does make it seem like you could just flip a coin to decide whether Betts’ defense is enough to make him a better pick than Freeman.
I don’t think Fried’s high bWAR is going to matter much in the MVP debate with his comparably “low” fWAR and a healthy selection of position player candidates having good seasons by both metrics (Betts, Machado, and Freeman are top 6 in both)
I don’t mean that Fried would be a candidate but rather that his placement on the leaderboard may diminish bWAR’s standing as a factor in the MVP race. “If Fried is second and barely behind Betts, and I don’t buy him as being this good, why am I putting stock in this bWAR stat in the first place?”
I think this is like some deeply motivated reasoning that ignores that people know that bWAR for pitchers is calculated quite a bit differently from fWAR for pitchers, while the only concrete difference for position players is which defensive metric is utilized (UZR vs DRS).
After the Snell and Nola discussions, folks are well aware of bWAR’s team defense adjustments and the like and are not going to devalue Betts’ performance in the metric because it has some oddities for pitchers that have been factors in most recent awards voting.
After all, Yelich had caught Bellinger in fWAR last year but remained substantially behind in bWAR, and folks voted accordingly. They are familiar with how it works.
Leading Max Fried by 0.1 WAR is not a “healthy” lead. Even confining it guys mentioned in this article, his lead is only 0.6 WAR and IMO anything under a 1-2 WAR difference is subject to debate given that WAR is merely an estimation based on a certain number of assumptions. It’s not a real number and the fact that different websites come to markedly different numbers is the strongest demonstration that it isn’t reliable.
Yes, I was only referring to the players listed in this article. I don’t disagree with your view over a full season, but we don’t have a full season. A 0.6 difference after 50 games is material.
Nah, it really isn’t. The article lays out weekly splits by WAR and every single 2 week period the top guy outperforms the laggards by more than 0.6 WAR. If you can make up the ground in a week or two, it isn’t all that significant.
It all comes down to how much you are willing to value individual player defensive statistics in a 60 game sample size. Betts alone shows just how much variation is possible depending on how you calculate it. Personally, I’m putting more weight on offensive statistics when i look at this season because they tend to stabilize much quicker, but I can see the argument for Betts based on his defensive value as well
I’m team Freeman all the way but at the very least you have to consider the positions played. Honestly, stabilization or not, it defies belief that Freeman is as valuable defensively as the other three. I think you can at least make rough assumptions even if you aren’t taking the numbers too seriously.
I don’t think you have to believe Freeman is as valuable defensively – just that the defensive value gap is smaller than the offensive value gap between him and the rest.
How does one actually play defense based on the eye test instead of defense stats. Just watch them play and you can tell who helps their team defensively.
With defensive positioning/shifting they have been able to hide slightly worse defenders at ss and 2nd the last few years, but the positional adjustment hasn’t changed in regards to war. It isn’t zero sum, so it stands to reason if slightly worse players are able to play up the middle, that corners will take on a little more value, no? Not like more than middle infielders obv, but more than they get now? Just speculating.
It’s not weird to hate on DRS.
And FWIW it’s worth considering that Bellinger’s similar substantial lead over the others in bWAR was enough to win him the MVP award in 2019 despite Yelich having caught him in fWAR.
Most writers who use advanced metrics in their MVP vote look at both WAR metrics and balance them against the two, so it’s certainly the case that Betts’s substantial edge -over the other players in this discussion, which Fried is not- is likely to help him.
IMO, I think that if Betts wins it’s more because in a crazy year the writers don’t want to go out on a limb for a new guy. Everyone knows Betts is an MVP-caliber player. It’s just a lot easier to rationalize voting for him when you’ve got 60 games or less.
I don’t actually have much of an opinion of whether he is better than the other guys, but I do think he is the one who we would have picked as the most likely MVP (of those four guys) before the season began (and will pick as the most likely MVP for next season of those four as well).
I agree with you and FWIW my personal opinion this year is that in the close cases my tiebreaker would be ‘which of these performances looks the most sustainable?’, IE which one would have had the best chance to be continued for a whole season? Guys who are achieving elite FIPS because they have a 0.00% HR/FB, or who have a .390 BABIP, etc, are simply less likely to continue those performances over a whole season than guys who are not, and if the overall value provided is basically equal, then I’d go with the guy whose performance had the least indicators of good fortune.
I don’t know that a lot of baseball writers will come to that conclusion or that they’d analyze good fortune the same way that I would, but that’s how I’d pick between the virtually-tied candidates this year, so Darvish over Burnes or Fried, and Betts/Machado over Freeman (who is at a .377 BABIP vs .342 career, with the the other guys at or even below career averages).
In a scenario where the player is definitively better than the competition (AL CYA, Bieber), you don’t need it.
Its a pretty narrow way to slice, but ‘performance most likely to have been continued for another 100 games’ is a reasonable tiebreaker IMO, especially if you want the award to be compared favorably to full-162 MVP and CY awards. Then again, I think the main justification for caring about the awards in the first place is their impact on players’ careers (eg HOF discussions, contracts), so I’m most motivated to try to try and give an award that doesn’t look bad or devalued in retrospect by the season length. If someone wins because they just didn’t allow a HR for 60 innings, it will much more clearly stand out as an anomaly from the pack of normal CYA winners.
I think you really should drill down further into the statistics. When someone has an outlier performance in a certain category, there is usually a good reason for that.
Here are two players with similar batted ball profiles. Both are LHPs, both were teammates last year.
Player A: 20.1% LD%, 54.2% GB%, 25.7% FB%. 21.4% Statcast hard hit percentage. 0% HR/FB rate.
Player B: 24.9% LD%, 53.7% GB%, 21.5% FB%. 31.1% Statcast hard hit percentage. 5.3% HR/FB rate.
MLB Average is 14.9% HR/FB rate. So both of these players are better than average at keeping the ball in the park. Player A is Max Fried, Player B is Dallas Keuchel.
Yes, having a 0.00% HR/FB rate doesn’t seem sustainable, but how does Fried do it? He does it by keeping the ball on the ground and by preventing hard contact. He’s got the lowest Statcast Exit Velocity among qualifying pitchers at 82.9 mph, a full 2.5 mph below the next best pitcher, Kenta Maeda. His Statcast average launch angle is 6.2. He’s given up 3 Statcast barrels all season, half that of the next best pitcher.
That’s why Fried has the fourth best Statcast xERA among starters, even though he has at least 30 fewer strikeouts than the three guys in front of him in xERA, Bauer, DeGrom, and Bieber.
You want to know who has had good fortune? Both Yu Darvish and Corbin Burnes have higher xERAs than ERA, and by around a run.
Darvish: 2.22 ERA 3.14 xERA -0.92 Diff
Burnes: 1.77 ERA 3.05 xERA -1.28 Diff
As for Freddie Freeman, if anything, he’s been unlucky. His wOBA is .447 but his wxOBA is .462.
To be fair, that other flavor of WAR overweights defense (not as much as it does for pitching, but it still does).
If we want to go to WARP, Freeman is in the lead, with Betts and Machado 0.2 behind.
Again, if nobody can agree on how it’s calculated, is it really even a valid stat?
“if something is only 85% accurate, why use it?”
We’re by definition measuring something that can’t be exactly measured, so having 3 competing estimates is better than having one, because you can compare them and see where they come to the same or different conclusions.
With that said, it isn’t so much that the other WAR ‘overweights defense’, it is that the other WAR uses a defensive metric that thinks defense has wider ranges of variation and contributes more to winning baseball games than the one they use here, and consequently all the numbers that are derived from it are larger.
Its often the case that UZR and DRS agree on who the best and worst defenders in the league are; they just disagree on exactly how valuable that is. the best defenders by UZR may be +15 runs, and by DRS +30 runs, and that’s the same player: its just a disagreement on how much elite defensive performance impacts the outcome of baseball games. They generally identify the same players as good and bad (though there are discrepancies).
And given that we don’t actually know exactly how valuable defense is to the outcome of a baseball game, having the option to essentially look and see how different players match up depending on how impactful defense is is more useful than just having one number.
Another consideration I’ve had recently is that there’s some irony in baseball-reference, who use a RA/9 based pitching WAR (and thereby by definition are assigning some responsibility for BIP outcomes to the pitcher directly) also use the defensive metric that considers defense to be more impactful, whereas FanGraphs, which uses a pitching war based entirely on DIPS theory and gives the pitcher absolutely no responsibility for balls in play, also uses the defensive metric that is more conservative about how it estimates the value of defense.
It seems to me that to some degree those philosophies would actually be better off exchanging metrics: Since bREF is choosing to give the pitcher partial responsibility for all BIP events, it makes sense to allot less total defensive value among the defenders for what they do with them. And since FG is using straight FIP, it makes sense for them to use a defensive metric that gives the fielders all the credit for outcome on balls in play.
To some extent I think it’s true that b-ref is over-crediting BIP outcomes (which is why they need these huge, hamfisted team defense adjustments to their pitching war), and that FanGraphs is under-crediting them by combining UZR with FIP.
I bet that the b-ref defense adjustments, which I mostly hate and drive me to not want to use bWAR for pitchers, would seem much more reasonable and measured if they were simply using UZR run scales, and that the opposite is true on the FG end. If your pitching value philosophy is to give the pitcher 0 responsibility for balls in play, then the defender’s responsibility is increased, and the run value of good defense is higher, because that value has to go somewhere.
To a large extent that value is lost in FG as luck, so much so that they don’t offer a team defensive efficiency sortable stat at all in the leaderboards (you have to look at pitching BABIP to see what proportion of balls a team turns into outs). That makes sense if you think that pitching BABIP allowed is basically random, but if you look at, say, team BABIP allowed 2017-present, you see the same teams on top of the list each season and fairly substantial separation between the folks at the top of the pack over that span from the rest. Some teams are reliably converting balls into outs at a much more efficient rate than others, over multiple season timeframes. DRS loves those teams, and UZR doesn’t. For my money, that’s a significant point in favor of DRS.
Just to illustrate, here is the 2017-present combined pitching leaderboard sorted by BABIP allowed, ascending.
Compare the teams at the top of this list with the aggregate UZR and DRS leaderboards. What you’ll find is that the teams w/ the lowest BABIPs allowed also consistently place highly in DRS, and this is not true in UZR.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2020&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2017-01-01&enddate=2020-12-31&sort=11,a
It also is no surprise that the 4 teams on the top of that list are the ones who are widely viewed as the most effective and advanced analytical organizations in MLB (Dodgers, A’s, Rays, Astros) over that span. Those teams are 2,14,4,5 in DRS over that timeframe, and 17, 6, 8, and 24 in total UZR over that timeframe. DRS is much more closely tied to overall team defensive performance.
If you think those teams are achieving those ball-in-play results due to things like player positioning analytics (and I think that is something we generally regard, say, the Dodgers, as being known for and good at), then DRS is coming closer to capturing that than UZR is by a fair margin.
The NL has great races this year in 2 awards… MVP and then Cy Young.
#2-#8 on the fWAR list are all in the NL. And it is #2-#9 in WARP. deGrom, Burnes, and Darvish all have really strong cases.
and you might not have the favorite IMO in Bauer.
The last time any player finished a year with a higher OBP than Freddie currently has was 2008 when Chipper had a .470 OBP.
By the stats it should be Freeman. And it would also make me very happy if it was Freeman and not Tatis.
Why?
Sounds like qwhite the argument
Yeah, I don’t understand not liking Tatis. I’m for Freeman because I’m a Braves fan, but why hate Tatis? Because he hits grand slams when the other team does not want him to hit grand slams?
If you want to hate on a Padre, try Machado. He threw a bat at someone because he was mad. He kicked a first baseman because he was mad. That’s actually a bad thing. Tatis has to my knowledge never done a “bad thing” on a baseball field.
he did not “kick” a first basemen. Muncy covered the bag like zero mlb players do, you are not supposed to put your football on the middle of the bag when getting the runner. Machado did nothing wrong
The thing about Manny Machado is that you get to point out that I think TKDC was talking about a DIFFERENT time he kicked a first baseman, this one being Jesus Aguilar when he was ON the Dodgers.
And truly that there are opportunities for confusion about which controversial first baseman-kicking was or was not intentional on his part is absolutely the quintessential Manny Machado conversation.
Manny is one of those players that fans love to hate, which certainly will work against him in an MVP race. Frankly, my personality is that when people are clearly going out of their way to dislike someone, it makes me want to start defending them, even though I’m personally not really a Machado fan. Nothing against him, just think other players are more fun to follow (like Tatis–don’t be lame, @notdeananna).
I just went back and rewatched the Aguilar play, bc it’s been years since I’ve thought about it. It’s a weird play, but there’s a perfectly plausible explanation that doesn’t end with the conclusion that Machado was dirty (Christian Yelich is not an unbiased arbiter on the matter, despite his take getting a ton of air time).
The first weird thing about the play comes from Aguilar, actually, who doesn’t remove his foot from the bag after making the catch, as is customary on routine plays. Instead, he leaves his foot squarely on top of the bag, despite having plenty of time to remove it after the catch. It should be noted that even on bang-bang plays, first basemen are taught to put their foot along the side of the bag precisely so that this type of thing doesn’t happen, which isn’t what Aguilar did either. It would have been totally fair for Machado to assume that Aguilar would step off the bag after making the catch, as is common on those types of plays, and the whole thing would never have happened if Aguilar had done just that. In fact, after the play, when Aguilar goes to argue with Machado, you can clearly see Machado pointing at the bag and saying to him that he didn’t create the space.
The question is, then, whether or not there is a way that Machado could have avoided Aguilar despite him staying on top of the bag. He was too close at that point to peel off or slow his momentum enough to stop, and he was going to hit the front of the bag with his right foot, so his only options would have been to try to go over Aguilar’s foot, or try to go around it.
Going around wouldn’t have been a good idea, because he exposes his ankle to the bottom of Aguilar’s cleat, and also risks getting tangled up with himself. So that’s probably out.
You could argue that he should have tried to go up and over, but that might have actually turned out worse, because he would risk clipping Aguilar’s calf or, even worse, Achilles tendon with the bottom of his cleat, especially if Aguilar started lifting his foot.
In that sense, dragging his cleat like he did is the best of the bad outcomes. You guarantee contact (bad), but the contact is also the least offensive (good), with the top of Machado’s foot going flush with the side of Aguilar’s. This contact was much less likely to cause a serious injury than either of the other two would have.
Ok, public defender speech is over. I can’t remember the last time I invested this much energy in something I cared so little about.
“I can’t remember the last time I invested this much energy in something I cared so little about.”
Welcome to a comment section, we’re glad to have you here, this is how it works.
Haha, yes, I was talking about Aguilar.
Get off my lawn
I’d probably lean Freeman. My guess would be it is close between Betts/Freeman with Tatis in third place as of today. Betts would probably be the winner, as it seems to me that a lot of voters use bref as oppose to fwar. Anything can happen over the last week, however I do think the way Tatis has faded down the stretch is really going to hurt his chances. Like it or not it seems like the final month is usually the most important part of the season for voters.
When is someone going to factor in competition? Guys in the NL West only face NL and AL West teams. The same is true of the NL East. Arguably the NL West has a tougher schedule, though it is difficult to tell with no interplay.
I would personally rank them as Freeman, Betts, Tatis/Machado as of right now. This last week is important though.
Honestly it’s going to depend how much voters rely on fWAR versus other versions of WAR. I know a widely popular model had Betts way ahead as of a couple days ago.
My hunch is best player, most famous player, best team wins unless someone does something crazy this week. Say Yaz hits 5 HR and the Giants go 5-1.
That’s assuming the voters use WAR at all….
Freeman .346 11 48
Machado .314 16 46
Betts .303 16 39
Tatis .278 15 41
Freeman may have more of a lead than you think.
Honestly, I think it is outdated at this point to believe the voters are consumed by traditional stats. Look at deGrom winning the CYA. Front office talk and even ESPN broadcasts and presumably most local broadcasts talk about advanced stats all the time. I’m sure RBI play a role at least for some voters, but Marcell Ozuna’s traditional numbers stack up quite close to Freeman and I think we will see that one will win or almost win and the other will be some down-ballot token votes.
deGrom winning the CYA was all about him having a 1.70 ERA. If he had a 2.50 ERA, he’s not close to the CYA.
There are several awards voters that absolutely look at traditional numbers first and foremost.
I know that we know that it *should* not matter, but when we are talking about and predicting who would win the MVP, things like batting average and RBI should be on that table.
those things do matter. Production matters. Production helps a team win.
batting average and rbi’s mean very little to a players value
You play to win, an offensive players job is to help the team score runs. batting average and rbi both can be seen as helping to contribute to scoring runs and winning.
Could a pitcher swoop in and win it this year? If deGrom or Bauer put up two great starts this week, including a game that clinches a postseason spot for their team on Sunday, they could wind up with similar WAR totals to the hitters. Could pitchers dominating the whole season and coming up clutch in a deciding game be a deciding factor in a race with no one separating themselves from the pack?
Bauer has only 1 start left. deGrom might have 2- but 1 of those would be on Saturday- and given how beat up he is- does he make that last start?
I don’t think Bauer would have much of a chance for MVP.
Tatis’s struggles have coincided with a hbp on the wrist he has on September 7th. He has hit ball better last couple of days and been robbed on multiple occasions by terrific plays. Not saying this stretch should be ignored for mvp voting just something to keep in mind if you are in the mind that this is just natural regression that was coming.
Which of those players has done the most to propel their team to where they are right now? A team with multiple legit MVP candidates, usually means they don’t actually have an MVP candidate as they help to cancel each other out. Unless of course all you care about is who has been the Best player, but that really is a different argument altogether.
“Unless of course all you care about is who has been the Best player, but that really is a different argument altogether.”
No, I think it’s actually the same!
Most VALUABLE player. It doesn’t say best player. Also, if you focused on best offensive player, that is what the Hank Aaron Award is for. Most Valuable is about so much more than just offensive or best player. It is about your value to the team, not just how good you are individually. If you want an award that is just about a players individual performance, then create the Most Outstanding Player Award because that is very different than MVP.
You’re not even being pedantic right.
If you want to talk about “value” like a pedant, shouldn’t you be talking about salaries, too?
Besides this… What you want is an award for Best Player, too. You just want to limit those eligible to players on the 6th-8th best teams.
The Hank Aaron Award is for the best offensive player, that award already exists. We don’t need another one. And this is not about a minor detail, its about how we define the purpose of the award.
The player that has done the most to propel their team to where they are right now is generally the player who has the best season…
Potentially, but it could be that maybe they have the best offensive season, but it doesn’t have much effect on the team in the results.
Very few if any voters will consider this at all but i do find this interesting
xWOBA:
1. Freeman 462
6. Tatis 436
21. Machado 409
36. Mookie 389
OOA
T1. Tatis (6)
T44. Mookie (2)
T44. Machado (2)
T123. Freeman (0)
And of course freeman plays the least important defensive position by far. I think all 4 have legitimate cases and suggesting it is clearly 1 is very much off the mark
“Tatis is the only candidate above average with the bat, on the bases, and on defense”
Mookie Betts is 13th in BsR, 15th in wRC+, and is tied for 2nd in DRS among RFs. It would seem he qualifies, no?
“Is good at everything on the baseball field” is basically the definition if why Mookie Betts is a great baseball player, indeed.
Tough call and any one of them is fine by me, but if Machado wins he ought share it with the Mariner pitching staff. He has beaten the ever loving snot out of those guys.
Any of the four would do as there definitely isn’t a clear cut leader in the race. Makes the last week pretty fun since most of the seedings are pretty much set. The proposal for divisional MVPs is interesting for a year like this, but you’d still have Betts, Tatis, Machado duking it out in the West haha!
Tatis Jr or Machado are most deserving as of now in my opinion. In American League Jose Ramirez. Bieber for AL cy.
Genuine question:
What is the MVP?
Is it really simply the player who creates the most theoretical wins based on statistical production?
Why consider any other stat/fact?
PA? Covered in WAR.
OBP? Covered in WAR.
ISO? Covered in WAR.
wRC+? Covered in WAR.
HR? Covered in WAR.
Base Running? Covered in WAR.
Defense? Covered in WAR.
Position value? Covered in WAR.
Why talk about these at all?
What is not included in WAR:
RBIs.
Runs.
WPA.
RE24.
Questioning the legitimacy/accuracy of the defensive component of WAR.
Team success.
Teammate quality/production.
Leadership/mentorship.
If the question is what player produced the most theoretical value devoid of circumstance, than it should be the top of the WAR board: Freeman. And is not a very fun discussion.
But if the question is what player was most valuable to his own team, relative to his team’s success, what player had the greatest positive impact toward his team’s success… than the discussion becomes much more interesting and fun.
I’m with you here. “What is the MVP?” is an excellent question that would be answered differently by so many people. Freeman’s traditional stats are outstanding, Machado/Tatis have both been valuable per WAR and have the narrative angle, with their team entering postseason for the first time in over a decade, and Mookie Betts is Mr. Consistency on the best team.
Another thing about Betts that should be noted, he played 10 games this year without recording a hit while the Padre duo, Yastrzemski, and Freeman each have had at least 14 games without a hit. Additionally, Yastrzemski and Betts haven’t had three-game stretches this season without recording a hit.
Couldn’t agree more with this post. People look at MVP very differently. Theoretical wins based on statistical analysis still doesn’t mean much to me. Actual wins are what matter. So someone has great stats that could theoretically give their team a certain amount of wins…..If you have a great statistical game, but your team still loses that game, what difference did it really make. On the other hand, you can have one great at bat that wins the game for your team, but the rest of your at bats bring your overall numbers down. You still won the game for you team, thats one actual W right there that you got your team, not a theoretical one. Actual production stats matter. I would also argue that intangibles outside of the statistics that players put up can matter for an MVP. Those things bring Value to a team and their performance, they matter.
Why is it so hard for you to understand that the MVP is an INDIVIDUAL award not a team award?
Yes, it is given to an individual player. Very easy to understand. In 1999 it was given to Chipper Jones. His performance down the stretch sealed it for him. Cutting the hearts out of Mets fans and players in the series against them to wrap up the East division crown is what won him that award. He was great all year, but what he did to the team chasing them for the division title, that was what sealed. That is an MVP. Steve Nash going back to the Suns and changing the culture and turning them into a winner again and a contender while leading that team made him an MVP. Jason Kidd going to the Nets and turning that franchise around was an MVP performance. Individual award that is about much more than just stats.
Also, side note:
Mookie Betts is a truly great player as well as a leader, and has been absolutely outstanding this year. But his actual replacement, Alex Verdugo, has produced 1.8 WAR.
Therefore Betts’ true Wins Above Replacement should be 0.8.
(2.8-1.8)
The thing about this framework is that it implies that WAR is an extremely precise, exact measurement when all the websites would feature it tell you that it is not, and that you should not treat a player with 2.3 WAR and a player with 2.5 WAR any differently.
So it can be very useful to group and identify candidates, and then after that you’re into subjectives and judgment even if your interest is in identifying the most raw productive/statistically valuable player. WAR is only an approximation, and it is not capable of the level of precision required to tell you the difference between Freeman, Betts and Tatis. For that matter, the creators would tell you you shouldn’t rely on it to definitively claim a difference between Seager and Tatis (a 0.6 gap).
We don’t have a complete, 100% precise understanding of how statistical production translates into winning baseball games or a precise measurement of how the various elements compare to each other. WAR is very good, and useful, but it’s getting you to 85 or 90% accuracy, and 100% is impossible.
It is much like everything else, including people: Things can be perfectible and consistently pursue/approach improvement, but they will never actually attain perfection.
MVP Calculator:
( WAR / Total Team WAR ) * Team Wins + Winning Percentage Added
T. Turner 2.5/6.4 = 39.1% * 23 wins = 8.99 + 1.17 WPA = 10.16
F. Freeman 3.1/15.0 = 20.7% * 33 wins = 6.83 + 2.34 WPA = 9.17
J. Soto 1.9/6.4 = 29.7% * 23 wins = 6.83 + 1.82 WPA = 8.65
Y. Darvish 2.6/14.0 = 18.6% * 32 wins = 5.95 + 2.08 WPA = 8.03
M. Yastrzemski 2.3/12.5 = 18.4% * 27 wins = 4.97 + 2.89 WPA = 7.86
M. Betts 2.6/18.9 = 13.8% * 39 wins = 5.38 + 2.44 WPA = 7.82
F. Tatis 2.9/21.0 = 13.8% * 34 wins = 4.69 + 1.19 WPA = 5.88
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I intended to only include one qualifying player per team…. But holy bananas, Juan Soto!
If he hadn’t missed a quarter of the season it just may be time to anoint him the greatest player alive (or at least greatest hitter).
Not to take away from Trea Turner. He may not be able to continue this streak for a normal full season, but my god he’s played awfully well with very little support.
That all being said, if you’re going to ignore the Nationals’ outliers, the choice has to be Freddie Freeman.