Baseball Musings: AL MVP Day

November 21, 2006

AL MVP Day

It's time for the last award of the year, the AL MVP. This should come down to a race among three players, Jeter, Mauer and Ortiz. That's the order in raw win shares, but the three are tied in win shares above bench. Each has positives and negatives.

Jeter's strength is that he plays almost every day. This year he played 14 more games than Mauer and three more than Ortiz. Even though his averages are lower, he's contributing more often. Jeter is also helped by playing in the second worst run environment in the AL. However, he is a poor shortstop. PMR estimates he cost the Yankees fourteen outs in the field in 2006.

Mauer gets on base at a tremendous rate and hits for power, all from the catching spot. But because he is a catcher, he missed 22 games last season as the Twins kept him rested. That probably helped Joe win the batting title, the first AL catcher to do so.

Ortiz is a great hitter, with a flair for late inning heroics. However, his game is one-dimensional, as he rarely contributes with the glove. Once again, Ortiz's bat isn't enough to overcome Jeter and Mauer's bat and glove, but it's real close, closer than last year with A-Rod.

I'd probably go Mauer, Jeter, Ortiz if I voted. Catchers are involved in so many aspects of the game besides hitting. Mauer, of all three seems to excel in all phases of the sport. The 22 games missed is a big deal, but with those fourteen fewer games, he's still right with Jeter in win shares. Mauer is the better player and deserves the award, although as with yesterday's NL trophy, any of the three would be a good choice.

Posted by David Pinto at 09:02 AM | Awards | TrackBack (0)

Comments

pinto, do you think carlos guillen cracks the top 10?

Posted by: Morisseau at November 21, 2006 09:37 AM

I think that Mauer's biggest obstacle is that he is arguably NOT the MVP of his own team. Therefore, how could he be MVP of the league?

Posted by: crg at November 21, 2006 10:04 AM

Morisseau, I hope so. He was by far the best hitter on the Tigers, although if someone picked an MVP on Detroit, they might go with a pitcher.

Mauer had a better season than Santana, but it's close. With pitchers going less than 250 innings, it's tough to make the argument that they have as big an impact as hitters.

Posted by: David Pinto at November 21, 2006 10:15 AM

If Ortiz had remained healthy, and the Sox had made the playoffs, I'd have gone Ortiz, Mauer, Jeter. The way things ended up, I'd go with the same ranking as you--Mauer, Jeter, then Papi.

I feel the stars are aligned for Jeter however. I will be shocked if he doesn't win. He just has too much momentum and hype.

I touched on this before. Twice. It boils down to this...

FOX continued to hype this Yankees team as one of, if not THE greatest lineup in history. If that's true, Jeter does not deserve the MVP. Even with the loss of Sheffield and Matsui. Sorry, they still had five guys score a hundred runs. Jeter is an MVP caliber player to be sure, and this may have been his best season, but I still think Joe Mauer deserves it more. He hits in a lineup with one other big stick. He won the batting crown over Jeter. People talk about the grind of Jeter playing short. Mauer plays catcher. Shortstop is a physical and mental vacation compared to catching.

And, yes, Guillen was the Most Valuable Everyday Player for the Tigers. Though you could really make the case for Rogers. He had good numbers and anchored/mentored a young staff.

Posted by: Mr Furious at November 21, 2006 10:39 AM

i assumed that crg was referring to morneau as the twins' mvp.
on another note, how do people feel about using wpa for determining mvp? i agree that it's not very useful as a predictive tool, but i think it does accurately capture (offensive) value in a retrospective way. according to fangraphs, ortiz led the al in wpa by a healthy margin, a little over 2 wins. can jeter make up that much with his bad defense and a positional adjustment? i honestly don't know. fwiw, mauer is over 5.5 wins behind ortiz.

Posted by: amos at November 21, 2006 10:42 AM

It may be tough to argue that pitchers going under 250 innings have as big an impact as hitters, but Santana had a much better year for a pitcher than any of the position players had relative to the norm. There really is no question that Santana contributed far more to his club with his arm than Jeter and Mauer did with their bats. The issue revolves around evaluation of defence and its importance in run prevention (BP's metrics and Win Shares come to different answers on the question).

Ortiz and Santana is really too close to call. Personally, I think Win Shares understates Santana's performance as it has every year of his career. Win Shares takes account of K, W and HR rate, but not pop-up rates. Santana gets docked for having a high team DER behind him, even though that is the result of his exceptional ability to pop hitters up. I like Santana better, as BP's metrics have it.

Posted by: Mike Green at November 21, 2006 10:42 AM

i don't know how you could leave the justin morneau out of the conversation. reguardless of wether he deserves to win is one thing, but i absolutely guarantee he will either finish first or second, so he at least deserves mention.

Posted by: adam at November 21, 2006 10:49 AM

Sadly, I'm not sure Mauer will crack the top five: Jeter, Ortiz, Dye, Morneau will all finish ahead of him, and I wouldn't be surprised if Santana or Thomas did, too.

I think Travis Hafner's MLB leading .355 EqA (like his .345 EqA last year) will be sorely neglected. Ladies and gentlemen, your most underrated player in baseball.

Posted by: Jurgen at November 21, 2006 11:16 AM

How could Mauer be the MVP if he played significantly fewer games then Jeter (and other position players)? Number of games played should be taken into consideration. Would you rather have Mauer in 125 games of Jeter in 155? Mauer makes absolutely no contribution in 1/5th of the Twins' games.

Posted by: sabernar at November 21, 2006 11:28 AM

sabernar,

Games played:
Morneau: 157
Jeter: 154
Ortiz: 151
Mauer: 140

It's a 14-game difference, not 30. That's not completely witout significance, but it's not nearly the spread you imply. I'd say Mauer's suerior defense more than closes that gap.

Posted by: Mr Furious at November 21, 2006 11:35 AM

I mean, come on. Mauer is playing a part in every pitch of every game he plays. The contribution he makes when he IS playing far outweighs the contribution of any other fielder.

Posted by: Mr Furious at November 21, 2006 11:36 AM

Morneau shouldn't even be in the discussion he's the third most valuable player on his own team.

Posted by: Adam at November 21, 2006 12:35 PM

i realize that Ortiz is a DH. but i feel that is is TOUGHER to sit down for 3 hours, only standing up to bat 4 times throughout the night. now, i dont think he deserves an MVP because of it, but it's no piece of cake being a DH. does anyone think the same way ? (i'm just trying to think outside the box).

Posted by: the Gov'Nah at November 21, 2006 12:53 PM

If it's tougher to sit down for 3 hours rather than play the field why do players rest as a DH?

I don't oppose a DH as MVP, I think Ortiz deserved it last year, but I don't think it's a tougher position than C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, or RF

Posted by: Basura at November 21, 2006 01:35 PM

Yes, players often sit down from the field to play DH to keep their bat. But consider all the terrific DH's over the years... the best one's i can think of are Baines, Edgar, Chili and Big Papi - since the DH came about, i can only think of 4 players you may even consider the best ever. (was Molitor a full time DH at the end of his career?). my point is, over a full season, it's just not that simple to DH.

Posted by: the Gov'Nah at November 21, 2006 01:49 PM

My own imaginary vote placed Mauer at the top, because over time I've come to feel that we underestimate just how taxing the job of catcher is, and how much it impacts a player's offense. Followed by Jeter, then Ortiz.

Posted by: Capybara at November 21, 2006 01:49 PM

tango and mgl reported in The Book that there's a pretty significant penalty for DHing. i don't have it with me now, but it was something like 30 points of OPS less for DHing as opposed to playing the field. so, DHing might not be as demanding physically as playing the field, but it looks like to hurts offensive performance.

Posted by: amos at November 21, 2006 01:52 PM

I think you see the DH "penalty" pretty clearly in Jason Giambi's numbers. Without looking it up, I believe he is significantly better with the bat when he plays the field. Though that could be a sample size issue.

Posted by: Reno at November 21, 2006 02:24 PM

Jeter plays 'almost' every day? He'll never win an award from the BBWAA. Never. When some people think of hype, they don't realize the individuals who vote do something entirely different. This is their moment--not a player's. This is their chance to put forth their celebrity,
to conform to what's required for their own future, to say 'I'm important, I can do what I want, and no one can say a word about it.' A previously little known Minneapolis voter became world famous a few years ago for not voting for a Yankee who was up for an award. It was the biggest moment of his life.

Posted by: susan mullen at November 21, 2006 02:39 PM

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