Pedroia wins AL MVP

by BraveBronco0121 on Nov 18, 2008 9:32 PM EST Comment 31 comments

Top five, in order

Pedroia

Morneau

Youkilis

Mauer

Quentin

This is a rather poor showing from the BBWAA, as is their norm. As per BTBS' rankings, the top five most valuable in the AL are...

Grady Sizemore - 76 RAR

Alex Rodriguez - 69 RAR

Dustin Pedroia - 61 RAR

Joe Mauer - 61 RAR

Brian Roberts - 59 RAR

Despite a mere 2 run difference in value, Roberts did not appear on any ballots while Pedroia won handily. Morneau finished at 27 RAR, Youkilis at 50, and Quentin at 37. In the end, what stands out to me isn't Pedroia, who should have been a top five finisher, but the two I just mentioned - Morneau, finishing second, was a staggering 49 runs less than Sizemore, who did not recieve a single top five vote despite being one of the game's elite players.

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Morneau finishing as high as he did is mind-numbing. He had a good season, but he wasn’t even the best player on his team. Stupid writers.

I’m more than okay with Pedroia winning. It was between him, Mauer, and Sizemore in my mind.

I guess I should be one to talk.
There's nights that I can't even walk.
There's days I couldn't give a fuck.
And in between is where I'm stuck.

by Smoltz's Beard on Nov 18, 2008 9:37 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

but…but…but…Sizemore only had an avg of .268! That surely isn’t worthy of a MVP!

by soup du jour on Nov 18, 2008 10:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Sure wish we had...

Sizemore!

by BBFAN46 on Nov 19, 2008 7:31 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Jordan Schafer

He’s supposed to be the poor man’s Grady Sizemore.

by buzzdeadwax on Nov 19, 2008 11:36 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I have read that several scouts grade him just a few ticks below Sizemore. Their skill set seems surprisingly similiar.

+1 to myself for alliteration.

I guess I should be one to talk.
There's nights that I can't even walk.
There's days I couldn't give a fuck.
And in between is where I'm stuck.

by Smoltz's Beard on Nov 19, 2008 11:42 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Can you give yourself +1?

And when are the points going to be tallied up, anyway?

by buzzdeadwax on Nov 19, 2008 11:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not sure.

Bigjoe was the one who started giving himself points. If someone actually took the time to tally all the points given on this site it’d be hilarious.

I guess I should be one to talk.
There's nights that I can't even walk.
There's days I couldn't give a fuck.
And in between is where I'm stuck.

by Smoltz's Beard on Nov 19, 2008 11:54 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It’s kind of like Who’s Line is It Anyway.

Nobody tallies, nobody really cares. The only difference is a lot of us are a whole lot more lame, and repetitive.

No wonder nobody likes you, Tuttle... everything's a (Pujols) damn debate.

by royhobbs on Nov 19, 2008 11:58 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Once upon a time...

…I was given a minus one for giving myself a plus one.

Anyway, you could have re-worded to say “Schafer’s skill set seems surprisingly similar” and gotten some bonus points. Like using all your tiles in Scrabble.

by VegasAces on Nov 19, 2008 12:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Good call, not sure how I missed that one. I retract my point.

I guess I should be one to talk.
There's nights that I can't even walk.
There's days I couldn't give a fuck.
And in between is where I'm stuck.

by Smoltz's Beard on Nov 19, 2008 12:36 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Uh...

I’m not one of those who’s sold on Schafer yet. Let’s see how Spring Training goes (if he’s still a Brave then).

by BBFAN46 on Nov 19, 2008 11:43 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, I'm not saying he's on the fast-track to the HoF

Just that “their skill set seems surprisingly similar”.

+1 to SB for alliteration.

by buzzdeadwax on Nov 19, 2008 11:49 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with comparing the two of them. Especially when you look at their minor league numbers:

Sizemore
1998 ABs, 332 R, 157 XBH, 250 RBI, 261 BB, 332 K, .289/.371/.411 = .781 OPS, 96/144 SBs

Schafer
1432 ABs, 199 R, 156 XBH, 193 RBI, 145 BB, 358 K, .270/.339/.447 = .786 OPS, 63/98 SBs

What’s especially promising is that Schafer has really improved his pitch recoginition in the last couple of years. His low career OBP is a result of having sub-.300 OBPs in his first two years in the minors. Since then he’s been .374 in 2007 and .378 in 2008.

I guess I should be one to talk.
There's nights that I can't even walk.
There's days I couldn't give a fuck.
And in between is where I'm stuck.

by Smoltz's Beard on Nov 19, 2008 11:53 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Schafer's got the power

But Sizemore is WAY ahead of him in plate discipline

by VictorW on Nov 19, 2008 3:15 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

BTBS uses one set of defensive stats, BP.com uses another, I use yet another. It really depends on that for some of those rankings.

For my IBA ballot I used my wOBA derived BRAA turned into wins averaged with WPA/LI plus BIS +/- derived FRAA with a positional adjustment. In short, I averaged actual preformance plus preformance in the clutch and added fielding to the end. For the pitchers I simply averaged tRA derived PRAA with their WPA/LI.

Mauer came out as worth 5.275 wins above average, Lee was second with 5.075, and A-Rod third with 4.710. The AL M.V.P. was one of those three players, as even accounting for errors in measuring fielding/batting, I don’t think Sizemore can make up such a gap.

Here’s every candidate I could think of plus everyone who got votes from the BBWAA. It becomes pretty obvious who shouldn’t have gotten votes (K-Rod 3rd is crazy) and who should’ve (Markakis getting none is completely ridiculous).

Wins above average
5.275 Mauer
5.075 Lee
4.710 A-Rod
4.555 Halladay
3.870 Sizemore
3.765 Pedroia
3.715 Markakis
3.575 E. Santana
3.395 Youkilis
2.945 Longoria
2.865 Pena
2.730 Rivera
2.705 Danks
2.625 Bradley
2.215 Quentin
2.185 Hamilton
2.160 Duchscherer
2.060 Roberts
1.920 Vazquez
1.630 Morneau
1.470 Huff
1.140 Kinsler
1.095 Ichiro
0.990 Mussina
0.830 K-Rod
0.785 Cabrera
0.640 Guerrero
-0.15 Dye
-0.31 Bartlett
-0.64 Ibanez

by 17843 on Nov 18, 2008 11:24 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Interesting methodology

Personally, I can’t bring myself to include clutchiness when evaluating player performance. The evidence I’ve seen points to clutch performance as a rather non-repeatable skill, and I don’t like holding those things against a player. Still, there’s a good argument for it’s use in handing out a single season award like this one.

by BraveBronco0121 on Nov 19, 2008 8:20 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t buy it at all as a repeatable skill season to season, but whether or not it’s part of a player’s true talent, it has to be included in an evaluation of a player’s season. We’re not measuring true talent year-to-year, we’re measuring actual preformance in a season. I wish there were some way to measure WPA for fielding, but I can’t imagine such a system would be technically feasible.

by 17843 on Nov 19, 2008 10:15 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I guess the question becomes just how much randomness to include or exclude in these kinds of evaluations

For example, I don’t think anyone would make the case that when voting for the MVP, we should consider whether a player had a BABIP that exceeded the results expected from his GB/FB/LD percentages. I think the difference between that and clutch hitting is that while we know that BABIP for hitters is a product of skill, clutch hitting seems to be completely random. I tend to find it hard to penalize a guy for complete randomness or reward someone for it, but it’s a tough call either way.

On the subject of WPA, it’s a very interesting metric. As a predictor of future performance (which it is clearly not intended to be) it’s rather useless. But for evaluating in-game situations, it’s… well, interesting! I can’t say that I use it often, but it does give us some funny results – in 2007, for example, Jeff Francoeur finished ahead of Brian McCann in WPA. I’ll admit that when I saw that I did a double take.

by BraveBronco0121 on Nov 19, 2008 11:25 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I’m ok with it. Pedroia is a fantastic hitter and a great team leader. Lots of energy. Definitely deserving.

by MTSU11 on Nov 18, 2008 11:35 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Joe Mauer is better at baseball, is just as much of a leader, and plays a harder position. What then makes Pedroia more deserving.

by 17843 on Nov 19, 2008 1:53 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Wow

Joe Mauer wasn’t going to win this award. I love him, and he is a better player, but it wasn’t going to happen, so calm down.

by iLukeisamazing on Nov 19, 2008 8:34 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

It’s irrelevant who was going to win the award. The complete inconsistency in writers’ voting patterns and their focus on stats that aren’t measures of true talent over defense, position, and true hitting preformance deserve to be pointed out. Whether or not Mauer was considered isn’t important. For Joe Mauer not to be one of the top two voters is basically indefensible for anyone paying attention to how baseball works. For Pedroia-Morneau-Youkilis to be 1-2-3 shows pretty extreme ignorance.

by 17843 on Nov 19, 2008 10:21 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

I’m just saying, people need to stop freaking out about it. We know that the MVP has now become a de facto popularity award, even though others definitely deserve it because they have better skills that real fans or writers understand that pundits don’t see. Like Mauer’s running a game like a CEO and giving his pitcher’s the best game-caller in the game.

Most people will never see that.

by iLukeisamazing on Nov 19, 2008 10:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Not just a popularity award

It’s also overly focused on the “counting” stats like HR, RBI, R, etc. I’ve never been able to delve too deeply into stats, but then again, I’m just a guy who watches baseball (at least until the Braves got taken off of TBS) – my only responsibility is to be entertained. But for the BBWAA, it’s inexcusable to ignore the new statistical analysis. How can you vote for someone unless you’ve at least looked at these stats and had someone explain how they work?

by buzzdeadwax on Nov 19, 2008 11:46 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I tend to think that mainstream sports analysis is a good 10 years behind the curve

by BraveBronco0121 on Nov 19, 2008 11:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The AL isn’t really baseball. I kid I kid. Or do I?

by someguy917 on Nov 18, 2008 11:53 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Pedroia

Back in the day DP would not have had the chance to be MVP. Bob Gibson, Clemens, and others would have dusted his little ass for crowding the plate and swinging for the fences all the time.

I would give it to Grady Sizemore for being so valuable to his team.

by themurph on Nov 19, 2008 12:15 PM EST reply actions 0 recs