Cy Young Predictor --- and Other Post-Season Speculation

[Vic Sage]

i think adding BA as if it were 300 or more points skews that formula too much in favor of BA, which i don't think is a particularly important stat. I think they should add 5-3-1 points for top 3 in each of 10 key offensive categories (runs, rbi, hr, BA, slg%, ob%, runs created, win shares, total bases, sb-cs), for a perfect score of 50, with 5 bonus points for playing up the middle, and another 5 points for being on division winner, for a perfect score of 60.

how would that score work out for current top players? Pujols still on top?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, the idea is that the stat --- whether you or I like it or not --- seems to be important enough to the MVP voters.

Still, I think the voters are going to respect Beltran more than Wright, even if the formula (and the Shea unfaithful) don't. There certainly seems to be more that can feed into that.

Reaching a plateau (40?) in homers, like the 100 RBI plateau.

Finishing top-five or top-ten in certain categories.

Winning a stolen base title.

Having Gold Glove awards on your mantle from previous years.

[metsmarathon]

heck, i posted the formula, and i don't like it...

but it seems to've done a decent enough job at picking NL MVPs, according to the article...

[Vic Sage]

if by "doing a pretty decent job" you mean of predicting the MVP voting, i can understand that. If, however, by "doing a decent job" you mean of SELECTING the best candidate, i disagree. As probably do you and Edgy.

[metsmarathon]

for selecting, i'd likely lean toward a win share methodology, or something similar.

i'd personally lean away from weighting team records, but that's just my own pet peeve.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It's a good pet peeve.

If Babe Ruth had played for the Athletics in 1921, they still wouldn't have caught the Yankees. Nonetheless, he'd have still been the most valuable player.

[metsmarathon]

have i mentioned that i hate when i hear arguments for albert pujols as the MVP that begin with "take him out of the lineup and..."

at that point, aren't we then just voting for the best player with middling teammates?

and of course, how then do you reconcile that travis hafner gets left out of most AL discussions, despite his team being 68-75, which, when you think about it, isnt all that much worse than philly's 72-71.

and then what that means is that your voting for the best player with middling teammates and mediocre in-division/in-league competition.

put the phillies anywhere in the AL, and suddenly ryan howard is no longer an MVP candidate. ditto the cards and albert pujols.

a corollary to this whole bitch-fest of mine is the notion that somehow, the mets are too good for carlos beltran to be an MVP. again, this award is not, to my right-thinking mind, meant to be a reflection of a players' teammates.

its the dumbest thing in the world to me that jose reyes or david wright somehow makes carlos beltran less valuable, or scott rolen and pat burrell somehow make albert pujols and ryan howard more valuable.

the most valuable player should be the player who contributes the most to a team's winning of games. does carlos beltran contribute less to the mets' winning of games because jose reyes or pedro martinez also contributes?

over in the AL, i fail to see how jason varitek's injury and the collapse of the sox pitching staff in august makes david ortiz somehow less valuable, less productive, less contributing to the winning of baseball games than he would have been otherwise.

and if we're going to be bsaing our MVP awards on whose team wins meaningful games down the stretch, and therefore carlos beltran is exempted from inclusion, then i fail to see how derek jeter is not also exempted from the discussion. i also fail to see how the supposed pundits can't see that the reason the yanks blew past the sox, aside from the afore-mentioned varitek injury and pitching implosion, was the addition of a motivated bobby abreu to a stacked lineup, moreso than any of jeter's mythical contributions.

that said, based on my established criteria, jeter is probably the best MVP candidate in the AL, 30 win shares to mauer's 28, manny's 26, morneau's 25, and a host of 24's including santana, dye, and papi.

because he has contributed the most, tangibly, to the winning of his teams' baseball games.

(beltran 37, pujols 35, howard 7th with 28)

[Vic Sage]

this is among my peeviest of pets.

When the award was named, it was in a time where language usage was more florid. It was commonly understood by the writers of the time that the "most valuable player" simply meant the best player. For how in the world could the best player NOT be the most valuable one?

Of course, reasonable people can differ on what constitutes "best", but the happenstance of who a player plays with certainly is NOT a reasonable criteria. Whether the best player is on a team with other great players, or is the only great player on his team, or whether he plays for a winning team or a losing team, should have ABSOLUTELY NO BEARING on whether a particular player is the "best".

In fact, the first 2 winners in 1911 [Ty Cobb (Tigers - AL) and Frank Schulte (Cubs - NL)] both played for 2nd place teams.

But as sportswriters have grown dumber over the last century (along with the rest of the populace), they've become so literal as to think there's some kind of substantive difference between "best" and "most valuable", thus requiring some kind of team context in order to evaluate the MVP, and a player on a losing team has to have a MUCH better year than a player on a winning team to win the MVP over the lesser player.

And thats just so stupid it hurts my hair just to think about it.

[Vic Sage]

for instance, so far this season, the following players are in the top 10 in their respective leagues in all 3 of the following 3 stats (runs created, total bases, OPS), with the # times in top 5 in ( ):

[u:de2e5c66f9]AL[/u:de2e5c66f9]
Ortiz (3)
Dye (2)
Hafner (2)
Morneau

[u:de2e5c66f9]NL[/u:de2e5c66f9]
Howard (3)
Pujols (3)
Cabrera (3)
Berkman (2)
Soriano (2)
Beltran (1)
Holliday (1)
Atkins

now, you can factor in defense, or adjust for parks, or use win shares, or some other matrix of stats to further distinguish these candidates, but i think passing over Ortiz to give the award to Jeter (for example), who was 4th in runs created, but only 14th in total bases and 14th in OPS, requires an overvaluation of his team's performance, an overvaluation of his defensive skills, and an overvaluation of his "intangibles". I think you first have to look at the individual's players' actual production, and then use defense and win shares (for example) as balancing factors.

The fact that Jeter was this productive as a SS while Ortiz didn't play defense certainly is in important factor... but does it outweigh the overall dominance of Ortiz's bat? For that matter, does Jeter's glove outweigh Hafner's bat, or Dye and Morneau's bat & glove? I think its a reasonable debate, but the fact that Jeter is the "captain" of the winning Yanks really shouldn't enter into it, IMO.

Similarly, Beltran is a great defensive CFer playing in a hitter's park on the best team in the NL, but does that outweigh the overall offensive dominance of Howard, Pujols and Cabrera who all were in the top 5 in all 3 categories? As a Mets fan, i might believe it does, but i don't think it necessarily should.

Maybe looking at these numbers in the context of OPS+, and WS, or some other metrics, might be more instructive. But you have to start with the hard numbers, not fuzzy notions of subjective "value" divorced from production, nor should extra credit be given to a player who has the good luck to play with other good players (and thus likely wins more games) than the Ralph Kiners of the world who shine brightly for losing teams.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm probably biased, but Beltran has been a far better centerfielder this year than last, don't you think?

I don't know quite how to weigh it (few do), but he's been yapple dapple.

[Vic Sage]

I agree, but just how much more is his defense in CF worth than Howard's defense at 1b, sufficient to offset Howard's substantially greater production?

I tend to discount defense generally, but i think he'd have to be Willy freakin Mays to make up the difference.

but thats just me.

[Guest Edgy DC]

How much substantially greater production are we talking about?

[Vic Sage]

Howard = 139.2 rc (1st) / 357 tb (1st) / 1.093 ops (2nd)
Beltran = 114.1 rc (6th) / 294 tb (8th) / .999 ops (5th)

Howard's greater production = 25 rc / 63 tb / .094 OPS to date.

substantial? yeah. too much to be compensated for by excellent defense in CF over average defense at 1b? i honestly don't know. But i'd be loathe to decide it with win shares, giving Beltran an advantage simply because he's playing on a better team than Howard is.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If win shares are going to him because he's on a better team, win shares aren't working right.

Howard also has 51 more plate appearances.

Yeah, defense makes up some of that gap, but it seems Beltran would have to stomp him out the last few weeks to make up the rest. And I don't see Willie giving him enough PT to do that.

[metirish]

From Ken Rosenthal.

] 4. No one deserves the NL Cy Young Award. An uninspired race in a pathetic league. Dodgers right-hander Brad Penny leads the NL with 16 wins, but half the time his manager and teammates want to wring his neck. Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter and Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon Webb are more legitimate candidates, but not terribly exciting. Padres closer Trevor Hoffman? For heaven's sake, he has pitched only 54 innings. Carpenter, 14-6, leads the league with a 2.84 ERA. Webb, 15-6, is second at 3.00. Either would look more presentable if he reached 17 wins. Pedro Martinez won the award with 17 in 1997 and Randy Johnson did the same in '99. As for ERAs, keep in mind that Steve Carlton in 1982 was the last NL Cy Young winner with an ERA over 3.00 � and he won 23 games and pitched 295 2/3 innings. Just slightly more credible than the current crop of N.L. candidates

this is from a few days ago.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Wins deceive.