November 14, 2017

MVP Pools

Bill James measures the strength of an MVP class. He weights the win shares of players in a league, then adds the weight to figure the quality of the MVP candidates in that league. People thought the 2017 AL class was strong, but James disagrees:

  1. The class of American League MVP candidates this season is actually the weakest since 2009 and the weakest in either league since 2009, although the 2016 National League class actually is almost the same. The class measures at 38 MVP Candidate Weight Points, whereas the National League in 2016 was at 39.
  2. The reason the AL measures as having a weak MVP class, in a sense, is Mike Trout’s injury. Trout normally registers as a very strong MVP candidate, but since he missed 48 games with an injury he earned “only” 29 Win Shares this year—the same as Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton—which makes him an MVP candidate, but not a STRONG MVP candidate; just another guy that the voters in their infinite wisdom might happen to take a liking to. That sounds derisive but I don’t mean it that way; I realize that the MVP voters do in fact have more insight into the value of the players than do my mathematical formulas which lead to Win Shares.

As usual, James works numbers in interesting ways to arrive at a cool result. I don’t know how long the article will be free, but it’s free right now.

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