Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
January 26, 2009
Award Night
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Not only were the Film Actors Guild awards presented Sunday night, but the baseball writers handed out trophies as well. Buster Olney reviews the event.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:44 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 20, 2008
An Award for the Phillies
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Phillies prospect Jason Donald takes home the Dernell Stenson Award for sportsmanship in the Arizona Fall League. Donald is a shortstop who gets on base. Given that Rollins is blocking him through 2010, he might end up as a decent trading chip for the organization.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 19, 2008
The Barlett Voter
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Marc Topkin voted for Jason Barlett on his MVP ballot. I'll give him a pass, however, since he voted Mauer much higher than Morneau.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Remembering 1971
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Dustin Pedroia winning the AL MVP reminds Josh Wilker of the 1971 MVP vote in which Fred Patek finished ahead of Bobby Murcer, despite Murcer being a much better ballplayer that season.

My favorite Patek moment came at the end of the 1977 ALCS. All series long the announcers kept telling us about the great fundamentals of the Royals, embodied by Fred Patek. They split the first two games at Yankee Stadium, and won game three in Kansas City with two more to play at home.

The Yankees won game four, and trailed 3-1 in game five going into the eighth, at which point Whitey Herzong over-managed his bullpen. New York scored one in the eighth and three in the ninth to take a 5-3 lead.

Patek comes up in the bottom of the inning, one out and a man on first. Patek was 7 for 17 at that point with three doubles and a triple. Certainly the great fundamental ballplayer would find a way to keep the Royals alive. Instead, he grounds into a double play. The Kansas City crowd stood at their seats in stunned silence as the Yankees celebrated on the field, and alone on the bench Fred Patek sat alone and cried.

It was one of the most amazing crowd reactions I've seen in sports. The only other thing that came close was Harvard winning the 1989 NCAA hockey championship. The game was played in St. Paul against Minnesota. Minnesota fans out-numbered Harvard fans 100-1. The Crimson scored in overtime to win the game. As ESPN pulled back to show the crowd, everyone stood their in stunned slience, except for a small section where the Harvard University Band was jumping up and down.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 18, 2008
The No Vote
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Amalie Benjamin gets Evan Grant's reasons for leaving Dustin Pedroia off his MVP ballot:

"I think the best way for me to sum it up is, in retrospect, obviously I was wrong," Grant said by phone. "My colleagues all, and people I respect an awful lot, thought Dustin deserved to be in the top 5. I had him on my ballot in some scenarios as high as No. 1 late into September. When I looked at the numbers that to me mattered most, OPS and batting average with runners in scoring position, he just didn't stack up with Youkilis at all. He was a laggard behind the others who had great years in the American League. Is it an error of omission that he's left off my ballot entirely? You could say that."

This wasn't as bad as the person who left Pedro off the ballot in 1999, and his reasoning is pretty sound. However, he also voted Mauer 8th, so maybe his overall reasoning isn't so sound.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:40 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Remembering Stenson
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The Arizona Fall League named the six finalists for the Dernell Stenson award. Stenson was killed in a car jacking while playing in the league in 2003.

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Pedroia MVP
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Dustin Pedroia wins the AL Most Valuable Player Award fairly easily, capturing 16 first place votes to Justin Morneau's seven. Pedroia was left off one ballot, however. He did not receive a vote lower than fourth. Teammates of the 1-2 finishers, Kevin Youkilis and Joe Mauer finished third and fourth. Each picked up two first place votes and Francisco Rodriguez took the other, finishing sixth behind Carlos Quentin. Mauer actually picked up the most second place votes, but his ballot placements were more spread out than Morneau and Youkilis, dropping Joe to fourth.

Pedroia is a perfectly good pick, but I still don't understand valuing Morneau over Mauer. Roy Halladay did not receive a single vote. Probably the strangest vote was a fifth place to Jason Bartlett, although during the season I did hear someone argue he was the Rays MVP.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:02 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack (0)
AL MVP Preview
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Joe Mauer

Joe Mauer
Photo: Icon SMI

The BBWAA announces the American League Most Valuable Player Award winner this afternoon at 2 PM EST. This is a very tough race to predict for a number of reasons.

First, the Red Sox own two viable candidates, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia. Boston media and fans are pushing Pedroia, although Youkilis produced better averages.

Second, the Twins also trot out two viable candidates in Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. In my opinion, the combination of Mauer's offense and defense are much better than Morneau's, but voters like the home runs and RBI that comes in the other package.

Carlos Quentin, who might have been an easy first choice, missed the last month of the season.

Josh Hamilton, the feel good story of the last two years, cranked out RBI at a very high rate. He also plays with a teammate, Milton Bradley, who put up better averages.

In a year like this, where I suspect different regions will produce different results (the Minnesota players getting votes in the midwest, the Boston players getting votes in the East, Hamilton and Bradley getting votes in the west), don't be surprised to see Alex Rodriguez sneak in. Alex led the AL in VORP (subscription required) and was a close third in home runs at 35. It's possible that if the first place vote is split enough, and Alex turns out to be a consensus second choice, he could win the award. I don't think that will happen, mostly because the Yankees didn't make the playoffs. In a vote in which there are so many players so close, I would not be surprised if the consensus second place player won. Throw in Grady Sizemore and Cliff Lee to the mix, and there are possibly nine players who might pull down a first place vote.

I like Mauer myself. My ballot would probably look like:

  1. Joe Mauer
  2. Kevin Youkilis
  3. Dustin Pedroia
  4. Carlos Quentin
  5. Grady Sizemore
  6. Alex Rodriguez
  7. Josh Hamilton
  8. Roy Halladay
  9. Milton Bradley
  10. Cliff Lee

I'm very curious to see how this one comes out. The advantage of a Borda count voting system is that it produces a viable winner when there is no clear cut first choice.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:27 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
Embarrassing Embarrassment
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Phil Sheridan embarrasses himself by writing that the NL MVP vote embarrassed the voters:

Pujols was not an embarrassing selection, not with his excellent numbers, but was still the wrong selection. And that should embarrass the association enough to do what it should have done long ago: get out of the business of voting on baseball's postseason awards - as well as the Hall of Fame.

That won't happen because the association is as incapable of being embarrassed as is Major League Baseball itself.

Voting for Edinson Volquez was an embarrassment. Manny Ramirez finishing fourth in the MVP poll was a bit of an embarrassment. Getting the vote right by picking Albert Pujols showed that some writers actually know what they are doing.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:13 AM | Comments (24) | TrackBack (0)
November 17, 2008
Pujols Wins MVP
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Albert Pujols wins the NL MVP award, taking both the most first place and second place votes.

Pujols, who previously won the award in 2005, was the only player whose name appeared on all 32 ballots submitted by two writers in each league city. He was listed first on 18 ballots, second on 10, third on two, fourth on one and seventh on one for a total of 369 points, based on the tabulation system that rewards 14 points for first place, nine for second, eight for third and on down to one for 10th.

It's a very interesting vote, with Howard finishing second, and Brad Lidge receiving two first place votes but finishing eighth. Outside of Pujols and Howard, there was no real consensus. Manny Ramirez finished fourth, which is pretty amazing considering he was in the league for just two months. Sabathia finished sixth, again the voters recognizing the impact of a short term player. For the second year in a row, I'm surprised at the lack of support for Hanley Ramirez.

A question arose as to my earlier post, as to why I left Berkman off the ballot when I thought he played better than Ryan Howard. The answer was simply that Berkman was just another first baseman having a great year. Down ballot, I like to recognize accomplishments. So Howard leading the majors in home runs goes down there, as does Manny's two incredible months with the Dodgers, and Tim Lincecum's Cy Young season. I think there can be some subjectivity to the MVP ballot, especially down ballot.

Congratulations to Albert Pujols on his second win. If Barry Bonds hadn't been around early in the decade, we might have seen four or five wins by now.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
NL MVP Preview
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Ryan Howard

Ryan Howard
Photo:Icon SMI

The BBWAA announce the National League MVP award this afternoon, and the pundits seem to handicap it as a race between Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard. However, that ignores a middle infielder with a great season, Hanley Ramirez.

There is no doubt Albert Pujols was the best hitter in the majors this season. If I'm filling out a ballot, Pujols gets my number one vote. I'm not sure how high I rank Howard. Here's a list of qualifying MLB players by slugging percentage. Note that Hanley finishes just three points behind Howard, and blows him away in both batting average and OBA. On top of that, he played a pretty good shortstop this season. Voting Howard second also ignores Lance Berkman, who posted better numbers as a first basemen, and other offensive contributors at key defensive positions like David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Howard's own teammate Chase Utley. If Ryan wins the award or finishes second, the Home Run/RBI wing of the voters is still alive and well.

Hanley Ramirez

Hanley Ramirez
Photo:Icon SMI

My ballot would be something like:

  1. Albert Pujols
  2. Hanley Ramirez
  3. Chase Utley
  4. Carlos Beltran
  5. David Wright
  6. Dan Uggla
  7. Tim Lincecum
  8. Ryan Braun
  9. Ryan Howard
  10. Manny Ramirez

Manny was certainly the spark that brought the division to the Dodgers, but it's tough for me to include him for two months worth of work. I might put Cole Hamels there instead. We'll see how the voters decided at 2 PM EST.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:40 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
November 13, 2008
Winning-Lee
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Cliff Lee

Cliff Lee
Photo: Icon SMI

Cliff Lee wins the American League Cy Young Award fairly easily. He took 24 of 28 first place votes and four second place votes. Roy Halladay received the other four first place votes. Amazingly, Halladay only appeared on 25 ballots. Three voters did not put Roy in the top three AL pitchers, despite some evidence that he pitched as well as Lee this season.

Voters seemed to be impressed with save totals, as Francisco Rodriguez tallied seven second place votes and eleven third place votes to finish in third. Mariano Rivera picked up three third place votes as well.

Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ervin Santana rounded out the field of pitchers receiving votes. I don't really have a problem with any of these pitchers receiving votes, I just can't see leaving Halladay off any ballot.

Congratulations to Cliff Lee on recovering from an awful 2007 season to come back and win the highest honor for a pitcher!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
AL Cy Young Preview
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The BBWAA bestows the American League Cy Young award this afternoon. The smart money rests on Cliff Lee, who both won the most games in the American League and posted the lowest ERA. His main competition for the award comes from 20-game winner Roy Halladay.

Lee came out of the gate strong, winning his first six starts and throwing nine shutout innings in his seventh, only to see Cleveland lose the game in extra innings. He went through two rough patches, on at the end of May and one at the end of September. Overall, however, he allowed two runs or less in 21 of his 31 starts, and two earned runs or less in 22 of those starts.

Lee's strengths lay in his control and home runs allowed. He walked just 34 men on the season, a little over one per start and 1.4 per nine innings. He gave up just 12 home runs, or 10.7 per 200 innings pitched. He did allow a higher batting average with runners in scoring position compared to his overall BA allowed, but he only saw 165 at bats out of 847 total with men in scoring position. He just didn't allow men past first base very often.

The best case for Roy Halladay comes from the competition he faced. Lee, playing in the AL Central, faced Kansas City five times and the Twins four times. He went a combined 7-1 against those teams with a 2.69 ERA. Halladay, competing in the AL East, faced the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees a total of 16 times, nearly half his starts. In those 16 games, Halladay posted a 10-6 record with a 2.96 ERA in 118 2/3 innings. That's an average of 7 1/3 innings per start against three good teams.

Halladay posted the same walks per nine as Lee, struck out batters at a higher rate, but also gave up a few more home runs. Like Lee, Halladay gave the opposition very few chances with runners in scoring position, and allowed just a .214 BA in the situation.

This is a tough one for me to pick. Lee leads in ERA, and when he was on was absolutely brilliant. Halladay faced much tougher competition during the season and responded to the challenge. Both deserve the award. Lee will probably win, but Halladay's tougher competition would likely push my first place vote to Roy.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:37 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
November 12, 2008
Managing an Award
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Lou Piniella

Lou Piniella
Photo: Icon SMI

The BBWAA award Manager of the Year this afternoon, Joe Maddon walking away with the award in the American League and Lou Piniella taking home the trophy in the National League.

I agree 100% with the first four spots in the National League voting. Lou Piniella got the Cubs out in front early and kept them in first place most of the season. He managed his offense, his starting staff and his bullpen well. My favorite moment from the season was when Lou came out to get Ted Lilly, who had pitched himself into a tough situation. Lilly didn't want to come out of the game and glared at Lou as the manager walked out to the mound. This was the kind of behavior that didn't go over well when Lilly pitched in Toronto. As Piniella approached the mound, however, he saw the glare and appeared to say to Lilly something like, you want him, go get him (meaning the batter). Lilly walked the next batter, and Lou removed him then, but he turned what could be a tense moment into a chance to show confidence in one of his players.

Charlie Manuel, who finished second and received eight first place votes helped the Phillies through the ups and downs to an NL East title (these votes are based on the regular season). Fredi Gonzalez gets the "team did better than expected vote." Joe Torre comes in fourth, leading the Dodgers to the playoffs thanks to a weak division, the Manny trade, and Joe finally playing the youngsters over the veterans.

Joe Maddon

Joe Maddon
Photo: Icon SMI

In the AL, Maddon ran away with the win. This was clearly due to the Rays far outperforming expectations, even the 88 wins predicted by PECOTA. My Maddon moment came in the playoffs. Evan Longoria's mechanics were off, so Maddon took him out to the batting cage and put him through some pattern recognition drills with numbered tennis balls. That turned him around, at least until the World Series.

The surprise to me was Gardenhire's finish in second place. I'm attributing that to coming close to the playoffs with the loss of Johan Santana. However, the Angels under Mike Scioscia out-won their Pythagorean projection, and the White Sox were as much an underdog as the Twins in the AL Central, but actually won it. Ozzie Guillen deserves some credit for that, but maybe his profanity laced rants lost him the press. I would have voted Maddon, Scioscia, Guillen 1-2-3.

Congratulations to Joe Maddon and Lou Piniella on their well deserved awards!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 11, 2008
Cy Lincecum
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Tim Lincecum takes home the BBWAA Cy Young Award in the National League. I'm waiting to see the vote. Although I would have voted for Santana, I can't complain about this choice. See my thoughts from earlier today.

Update: Here's the vote from the BBWAA. Webb came in second, Santana third. The voters split down the middle on which should be in first, but Webb was the consensus second choice. It appears that wins still carry a lot of weight among some sports writers.

There was not a lot of support for Sabathia. Given the amount of ink and pixels devoted to his candidacy during the second half of the season, I expected him to get more support. Instead, he received one first, second and third place vote.

Congratulations to Tim Lincecum on his outstanding season!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:05 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Albert Won't Vote for Himself
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MLB FanHouse finds a quote from Albert Pujols on the MVP award. In 2006 Pujols said:

"I see it this way: Someone who doesn't take his team to the playoffs doesn't deserve to win the MVP," Pujols said in Spanish at a news conference organized by the Dominican Republic's sports ministry.

Of course, new facts may have changed Albert's mind.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Cy Tuesday
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Tim Lincecum

Tim Lincecum
Photo: Icon SMI

The BBWAA confers a Cy Young Award on a National League pitcher today. For me it comes down to Johan Santana and Tim Lincecum. Santana led the majors in ERA. Lincecum, however, struck out over 2.5 more batters per nine than Johan, while allowing home runs at half the rate.

Both are extremely deserving, although my guess is Tim's better record will sway voters. Let me point out that a big reason for LIncecum's low ERA, however, came from his six starts against the Padres. He posted an 0.62 ERA in those games.



Johan Santana

Johan Santana
Photo: Icon SMI



Santana, on the other hand, pitched the most against the Phillies, five times. His stats against one of the best offensive teams in the league were quite impressive. In other words, the Mets put Johan out for their toughest opponent and he came through.

If I had a ballot, it would be:

  1. Johan Santana
  2. Tim Lincecum
  3. CC Sabathia

Sabathia's short NL season deserves recognition, but it's tough for me to put him ahead of two pitchers who performed extremely well for a whole season in the league. We'll find out the winner at 2 PM EST this afternoon.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 10, 2008
Rookie Winners
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Evan Longoria

Evan Longoria
Photo: Icon SMI

Evan Longoria and Geovaney Soto took home Rookie of the Year honors today. Evan won the AL version of the award unanimously, and Soto received 31 of 32 first place votes.

Longoria belted sixty extra-base hits in just three quarters of a season. He also shone defensively as he prevented runs in the field and added runs at the plate, helping the Rays to their first winning season, first division title and first AL pennant. His 2008 seasonal age was just 22, so his ceiling is very high coming off that impressive rookie year. He did a great job justifying the large contract the Rays negotiated with him at the start of the season.

Geovany Soto

Geovany Soto
Photo: Icon SMI

Soto teased Cubs fans with his high OBA in just 18 games in 2007. He lived up to that brief cup of coffee, posting a .364 OBA and a .504 slugging percentage in 2008. He was one of the reasons the Cubs put together one of their best seasons getting on base that I can remember. Like Longoria, Soto also smacked 60 extra-base hits on the season. Soto didn't do a great job of stopping the running game, only stopping 18 of 87 base stealers. The Cubs staff did turn in a low ERA, however, and the catcher should get some credit for that.

It's been fifteen years since a catcher won the prize. Mike Piazza was the last to take home the honor from behind the plate. It should be noted that all the catchers who won the award, starting with Johnny Bench in 1968, went on to excellent careers. In addition to Bench, the award went to Thurman Munson, Carlton Fisk, Benito Santiago and Sandy Alomar. That's good company.

Congratulations to both Evan Longoria and Geovany Soto on their well deserved Rookie of the Year awards!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Jackie Robinson Day
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The Baseball Writers announce The Jackie Robinson Award for NL Rookie of the Year this afternoon. Geovany Soto is expected to take home the prize. His batting stats, however, are very close to Joey Votto, and Votto played more. Soto will get a boost from playing catcher. His defensive prowess combined with his good offense made Geovany the top NL catcher in terms of win shares. Votto just can't match the defensive contribution playing first base.

Update: Fixed the last sentence, I meant Votto.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 06, 2008
More Gloves, More Gold
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The American Gold Glove awards winners are out. Why do the voters insist on giving the award to old pitchers?

Correction: I meant voters, not reporters.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:06 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Pedroia Leaks
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Although the award won't officially be announced until later this afternoon, Dustin Pedroia told WEEI that he won the American League Gold Glove at second base.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Weblog Nominations
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While we await the rest of the 2008 baseball awards, nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Weblog Awards. You can nominate your favorite sports blogs here.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 05, 2008
Gold Gloves
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The National League Gold Glove awards came out today. I'll be publishing PMR data for fielders over the next week so you can see how they compare.

Remember, the voting system for Gold Gloves is very poor, so that's mostly why they end up with poor results. All they need to do is give the voters a list of players with 120 games at each position, and ask them to rank the top three.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 23, 2008
Top Managers
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SportingNews.com names Joe Maddon and Fredi Gonzalez managers of the year. I can't argue with Maddon, but I'm not sure about Gonzalez. The Marlins certainly exceeded expectations, but I love the way Lou Piniella changed the way the Cubs approach their offense. Plus, the Cubs actually won something. Tony La Russa also deserves some credit from getting a lot of mileage out of a Cardinals team made from spare parts.

Congratulations to Maddon and Gonzalez on the honor!

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:48 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
October 21, 2008
Outstanding Players
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The Major League Players Association just sent me an e-mail announcing that Albert Pujols in the NL and Josh Hamilton in the AL won Outstanding Player of the Year. You can see interviews of the players here.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
October 20, 2008
Outstanding Peer
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Tim Lincecum's peers honored him with an award:

The Players Association announced this morning that Tim Lincecum was voted by his peers as the National League's Outstanding Pitcher, beating out fellow finalists CC Sabathia of the Brewers and Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks.

I'm surprised Johan Santana wasn't in the top three. Will Webb's hot start weigh more with Cy Young voters than Santana's strong finish?

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 30, 2008
The L's Have It
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Brad Lidge and Cliff Lee win Comeback Player of the Year in the NL and AL respectively. Two excellent choices, although Mike Mussina should be up there as well.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
September 23, 2008
Defensive MVP?
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Somehow Jason Barlett was voted the Rays MVP. Joe Posnanski makes the case against the Tampa Bay shortstop. Now, the Rays played horrible defense last season, and even though Bartlett fell off in his fielding stats this year, he was an improvement. However, did anyone notice Dioneer Navarro's improvement? Or Even Longoria? I guess Barlett has been Jeterated.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:00 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
September 16, 2008
How Will the Writers Vote?
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Predicting the Cy Young race at Beyond the Boxscore.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 14, 2008
Tim's Time?
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Tim Lincecum

Tim Lincecum
Photo: Icon SMI

Tim Lincecum improved his chances of winning the Cy Young Award Saturday night as he pitched the first shutout and complete game of his major league career. He allowed the Padres just four hits and three walks while he struck out twelve. Bruce Bochy allowed Tim to throw 138 pitches, which I'm sure will raise some hackles. It seems the Giants believe that Lincecum is a different pitcher, and pitch counts don't matter with him. We'll see.

Recently, two studies used strength of opponents to show that Cliff Lee had an easy path to his Cy Young type season. I wonder if the same will hold true for Lincecum? Saturday he made his sixth start against San Diego, ranked last in the majors in runs per game at 3.86. He posted a 3-0 record with an 0.62 ERA against the Padres, allowing three runs in 43 1/3 innings while striking out 49. Against all other opponents, Lincecum's ERA stands at 2.90. Still pretty good, but higher than Santana's 2.70.



Johan Santana

Johan Santana
Photo: Icon SMI



The team Santana faced the most is Philadelphia. The Phillies are third in the NL in runs per game at 4.86. Santana is 2-0 against the Mets division rivals with a 2.97 ERA in five starts. He's walked six and struck out 32 in 36 1/3 innings of work, while allowing five home runs. Take the Phillies out of the Santana mix and his ERA drops to 2.64.

Lincecum does lots of things well. His strikeout numbers and durability remain impressive. The Mets called upon Santana to face their most important foe five times and performed extremely well against a tough offense. That should carry some weight as well.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:40 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
September 09, 2008
Not a Lot of Lee Love
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Boys of Summer pulls together two threads on why Roy Halladay is better than Cliff Lee. Roy's faced better competition, both in the batters faced and the starters going against him.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Full or Half?
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Tim Lincecum pitched into the ninth inning Monday night, loading the bases with one out before leaving with a 6-0 lead. Two of those runners scored, only one of them earned as Tim lowered his ERA to 2.54 and kept the Diamondbacks from gaining on the Dodgers.

With Haren and Webb fading, should Lincecum win the Cy Young award? His great ERA allowed him to go 16-3 on a very poor offensive team. He leads the NL in both strikeouts and strikeouts per nine. He goes deep in games, averaging nearly seven innings per start. His walks are a bit high, but with a home run rate of about 10 per 200 innings, the power isn't there to advance the walkers. The big question: is a half season of Sabathia worth more than a full season of Lincecum? Sabathia pitched all his bad outings with Cleveland., so they don't count toward this vote. In other words, how important is sample size to Cy Young voters?

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:28 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
September 01, 2008
Top Lance
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Twins Fix makes the case for Lance Berkman as ML MVP.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 04, 2008
New Stars
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Mike Aviles and Xavier Nady share player of the week honors. Nady proved to be a great pickup for the Yankees, while Aviles seems to be in the middle of every Royals win lately.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:37 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
July 14, 2008
Blog Poll
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The latest Blog Poll looks at the National League Award winners if the season ended now.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 08, 2008
Blog Poll
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The latest Blog Poll is up, this week looking at the potential AL award winners.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 29, 2008
Weekly Blog Poll
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The latest Blog Poll is up, this week looking at National League awards.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 22, 2008
Polling the Blogs
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The latest award voting by baseball bloggers looks at the American League this week.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 13, 2008
Polling the Bloggers
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The latest BlogPoll results are up at Baseball Happenings.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 06, 2008
Polling the Bloggers
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The latest MLB Blog Poll is up, looking at who bloggers think should get the big awards so far. This week looks at the AL races, and it was good to see Carlos Quentin tie for third. I put him number one, since through Sunday he was at the top of the list in both OBA and slugging percentage.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 03, 2008
Blog Poll Results
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I'm linking to this late, but MLB Blog Poll results for the NL through the end of last week are up. Separate post list MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 22, 2008
Blog Poll
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The latest MLB Blog Poll is up, this week looking at AL award races.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 15, 2008
Polling the Bloggers
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Week two of the MLB Blog Poll is out, looking at who bloggers see as the NL MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year so far. We're switching leagues each week.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
April 08, 2008
Early Poll
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Baseball Happenings is running a poll at the end of every week to see who bloggers rate as the MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Years. Each week the league switches, and the votes this week were for the AL players. It should be fun to see how this changes over the course of the year.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 05, 2007
Destroying Award Bonuses
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The Baseball Writers are taking aim at performance bonuses based on awards:

The Baseball Writers' Association of America voted this morning to approve a resolution in which, starting in 2013, all contracts that have financial terms attached to major awards will not be eligible for consideration for that award.

They're pointing to Schilling's contract in which he gets a bonus for one Cy Young vote. But the conflict of interest is much bigger for beat writers. Some papers don't allow their reporters to vote for awards because they don't want conflict with players. So either players no longer get these types of bonuses, or the vote gets taken away from the writers.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 20, 2007
Rollins Wins
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Jimmy Rollins wins the NL MVP, but I haven't seen the voting yet.

The voting is here. If you calculate a strict Borda count, where their is no bonus for a first place finish (10 points instead of 14), Holliday wins the award 292-289. In other words, more voters were sure Holliday was highly ranked (3 votes below second) than were sure Rollins was highly ranked (nine votes below second).

Can you believe David Wright was left off four ballots? Or how poorly Miguel Cabrera polled? I ought to try to do a study on this data to see what statistics were most important to NL voters. Given that 15 of the 26 players receiving votes were on playoff teams, I'm guessing that's a huge influence.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:04 PM | Comments (24) | TrackBack (0)
NL MVP
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The NL Most Valuable Player award will be announced this afternoon, and ESPN experts are squarely in the the Jimmy Rollins corner. According to win shares, Rollins wasn't even the best shortstop in the league, nor the best player on his team. Win shares does give the award to David Wright, and I'm interested to see how the voting plays out. Most of the really deserving candidates, Wright, Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and Hanley Ramirez didn't play for winners.

As a side note, how can you have two position players at the level of Ramirez and Cabrera and not post a winning record? What really irks me about the Marlins is that if they tried just a little, they could easily win the NL East.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:57 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
November 19, 2007
26 Out of 28
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Alex Rodriguez took home his third MVP award today, with 26 of 28 writers listing him first on the ballot. Magglio Ordonez received the other two first place votes.

A-Rod picked up his third career MVP award, joining an exclusive list that includes just eight other players, including Yankees legends Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Barry Bonds leads the list with seven MVP awards, while Roy Campanella, Jimmie Foxx, Stan Musial and Mike Schmidt have won three each.

I'm somewhat surprised Vlad Guerrero finished ahead of David Ortiz. David had an incredible offensive year, but I guess the full time DH gig did him in. Congratulations to Alex on a well deserved MVP. He easily could have won five by now.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:08 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
November 15, 2007
Perfect Peavy
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The pitching triple crown nets Jake Peavy a unanimous Cy Young award.

The San Diego Padres ace received all 32 first-place votes and finished with 160 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Arizona sinkerballer Brandon Webb, last year's winner, was a distant runner-up with 94 points. He was listed second on 31 ballots and third on one.

Interestingly, Webb actually earned more pitching win shares. That came from pitching in a tougher ballpark with a weak offense behind him. Maybe the vote should have been a bit closer. But Peavy pitched equally as well home and away. It's an excellent choice for the award. Congratulations to Peavy on a great season.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Voting Peavy
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The twenty experts at ESPN.com vote unanimously for Jake Peavy to win the NL Cy Young award.

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Stenson Award Winner
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Sam Fuld of the Chicago Cubs wins this year's Dernell Stenson award honoring the slain ballplayer. Fuld plays with Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes:

Fuld, just 12 at the time, had the chance to chat with Detroit Tigers right-hander Bill Gullickson, who was nearing the end of his 14-year career.

It might have seemed that the two had little in common. In fact, both have Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.

"I got the chance to meet Bill Gullickson and even though I just talked to him for two minutes, it was enough to inspire me," recalled Fuld, who made his Major League debut in September. "So anytime I can talk to young diabetic kids, I look forward to that opportunity."

Since turning pro as the Cubs' 10th-round draft pick out of Stanford in 2004, Fuld has participated in several baseball camps for diabetic children, hoping he can inspire the youngsters as he was inspired by Gullickson.

That kind of attitude and awareness of how his own brand of quiet leadership can have a positive impact on others is a big reason why Fuld was presented Wednesday with the Arizona Fall League's Dernell Stenson Award for Leadership.

Congratulations to Sam. The four previous winners are off to good starts in their major league careers. It's tough to believe four years have passed since the murder of Stenson.

Posted by StatsGuru at 06:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 14, 2007
Managing Awards
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Eric Wedge and Bob Melvin won Manager of the Year for the AL and NL respectively. Congratulations to both deserving candidates who led their teams to the best records in their leagues (the Indians were tied with the Red Sox).

Melvin, of course, led a team that greatly outperformed their predicted won-lost record, a team that posted the best record in the NL despite scoring less runs than their opponents. Making the right moves in close games was critical to the Diamondbacks success.

What I don't understand in the AL voting is the poor finish of Terry Francona. Mike Scioscia and Joe Torre blew him away:

Wedge received 19 of the 28 first-place ballots and got 116 points, finishing ahead of the Angels' Mike Scioscia (62 points). Joe Torre, fired by the Yankees, was next with 61 and Terry Francona of the World Series champion Red Sox got 13.

However, looking at the season in hindsight, the Red Sox fall from their big lead was managed very well. Francona never panicked. He used the huge cushion created early in the year to allow his players to rest and overcome injuries. He did an excellent job of setting his team up to win the World Series.

Of course, a big part of this award is expectation. Wedge out performed his, while Francona were met. Terry, however, deserves more recognition for a job well done.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:36 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
November 13, 2007
Cy-Ming Wang?
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How can someone who writes about baseball be this far off? Tom Singer lists Chien-Ming Wang third in his Cy Young handicapping. I wonder if this was based on a poll of voters, or just that Wang won a lot of games? We'll know at 2 PM EST.

Update: At ESPN.com, not one of 20 voters listed Wang as a first choice.

Update: Sabathia wins, more to come.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:08 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
The Right Rookie
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Dustin Pedroia and Ryan Braun took home Rookie of the Year honors Monday. Pedroia won in a run away, while Braun and Tulowitzki finished in the closest race under the current voting system.

The two-point difference was the closest in the NL since the current voting system was adopted in 1980. The previous closest contest was last year, when Florida shortstop Hanley Ramirez edged Washington third baseman Ryan Zimmerman 105-101.

Mark Krieger doesn't seem to think defense was taken into account enough:

As you can see, the baseball writers really like their numbers. In all, they listed nine performance statistics apiece for the two leading candidates. Eighteen numbers. And every one of them reflected performance at the plate.

Nowhere in those five paragraphs will you find any mention of defense. This from a group devoted to explaining the game of baseball.

And that is why Braun, a wonderful hitter and lousy fielder, beat Tulowitzki, a slightly less wonderful hitter and spectacular fielder at a more difficult position.

I'll post PMR for third base later today, but I just checked and Braun is indeed near the bottom of the list, while Troy reigned supreme over defensive shortstops. However, offense does count for a lot, and win shares does put Braun ahead of Tulowitzki. According to The Hardball Times, Tulowitzki posted 25 win shares, 12 over bench, and a rate of .688. The win shares break down 14 offense, 11 defense, a great season for anyone, let alone a rookie. Braun posted 22 win shares, but 13 over bench, and with a rate of .816. Despite coming up on May 25th and being a poor defensive player, Braun contributed more to the Brewers than Tulowitzki did to the Rockies. Braun, however, did it all with offense (20 offense, 2 defense). The vote was just as close as it should have been, but there's no problem taking Braun's offense over Tulowitzki's defense.

Congratulations to Dustin Pedrioa and Ryan Braun on winning the Rookie of the Year and the Jackie Robinson award.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
October 19, 2007
Why Writers Vote Before the Playoffs
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LyfLines wonders what the Cy Young voting would be like if reporters waited until after the playoffs.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 02, 2007
Comeback Players
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Dmitri Young and Carlos Pena win comeback player of the year in the NL and the AL. Young posted the best OBA of his career, while Pena turned out to be one of the top offensive players in the AL. Congratulations to both!

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October 01, 2007
Ordonez at the Top
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Roar of the Tigers celebrates Magglio Ordonez's batting championship:

You and I know full well that batting average is not a good way to get a comprehensive look at a player's value on the field (I misspelled at least 5 words in that sentence fragment, including a mash-up of 'on' and 'the' into some mutant word that looked like 'onthne'. This was how I knew it was time for me to go to sleep and finish this post in the morning. 100% fact), but that's why the Batting Title is so nice. It has no pretensions. It doesn't really try to say, "this ballplayer is the best hitter." All it does is say, "this dude had the highest batting average at the end of the season, and that is something to celebrate." It says, "I don't really care if the dude was hitting homeruns or dribbling singles, the point is that he put his bat on the ball in a productive way a lot this year and that is a separate skill." It says, "boo yah! Eat it, Mauer."

Batting average was designed to award a batting crown, and it does that very well. It's not a stat that should be used much beyond that, however. Batting average recognizes that the game is about hitting. Walks are very valuable, but fans in general like to see hits. Hits cause action. They move runners and force fielders to make plays. Hits are where the action is. So batting average does a nice job of picking the best hitters without hurting players who also draw a lot of walks. So you can win a batting title like Wade Boggs, who drew tons of walks to keep his batting average denominator low, or like Ichiro Suzuki, who collects a lot of hits to keep the batting average numerator high. Both are valuable, but you have to get hits.

The NL race isn't quite finished yet, as a Matt Holliday 0 for 5 gives the title to Chipper Jones by going to the 10,000th place.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 24, 2007
The Grind
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Curt Schilling discusses how the 162 game schedule wears down players:

Contrary to some local beliefs, we didn't fold and we didn't screw it up. We made the post season. Not to belittle any of the other major sports, more because I never played hockey or basketball seriously, but I can't imagine a more grinding schedule than the MLB schedule. Not really for pitchers, though I certainly feel a lot different in September than I did in February, but more the position players.

If you get to the dance and play all the way through you pretty much play close to 200 games in about 225 days. Most of those off days are spent traveling or at the park receiving treatment or working on your swing or something. Deion Sanders and Brian Jordan, both All Pro NFL players and damn good major leaguers said that the ML season and the NFL season weren't even close. The MLB schedule was 10 times the grind of the NFL schedule. It's not any one thing, but the fact is, aches, pains and bruises aside, you suit up every single day and compete against the best players in the world once every twenty four hours.

Don't take that as a whine, it's not life or death, but for the guys suiting up every day it has to be incredibly tough physically, to be good.

He also lists his choices for the Sport News Player Choice awards. He makes good picks (you're not allowed to vote for teammates). Here's Curt on Sabathia:

A few guys, along with Josh, certainly had great seasons, but CC's numbers, when you dive into them even a little bit, are awesome. Hopefully he'll begin to get the recognition he aptly deserves as an ace and one of the 3-4 best pitchers in baseball. The little bit I got to know him at the 2002 AS game made me think the world of him. Great kid who has an immense amount of respect for his craft and the sport.
Posted by StatsGuru at 07:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
August 15, 2007
Early Votes
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Over at Epic Carnival, the authors take an early poll on who should win the post-season awards.

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July 28, 2007
Race Over?
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Braun22028182_Diamondbacks_v_Brewers.jpg

Photo: Allen Fredrickson/Icon SMI

Ryan Braun went 3 for 4 with a home run in a losing effort by the Brewers today. Milwaukee scored all six of their runs in the first three innings, but the Cardinals bullpen shut them down over the last six. That gave St. Louis a chance to come back, as they closed to 6-4 before scoring three off Cordero in the bottom of the ninth to win the game.

But Braun raised his batting average to .356, his OBA to .402 and his slugging percentage to .680. Although qualifying for the batting title would be difficult at this point, with the wrist injury to Hunter Pence, the field is clear for Braun to win the Jackie Robinson award for Rookie of the Year.

The batting race may end up interesting anyway. If Braun gets close enough to 502 PA, the rule that allows a player who doesn't have enough PA to win comes into effect. You give the player an 0-for the number of PA he needs to qualify, and if the resulting average would still be highest in the league, the player wins the batting title. Tony Gwynn won the batting title that way in 1996.

Posted by StatsGuru at 06:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
June 12, 2007
Rating the Rookies
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Mr. Irrelevant likes Jeremy Guthrie for AL Rookie of the Year.

Coming into this season, it was Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera and Adam Loewen who gave Baltimore hope for the future. Despite Bedard's amazing strikeout rate, it's Guthrie who's their ace through first two-fifths of the season. The 28 year-old has only three wins (thanks, Chris Ray!), but check out these numbers: 2.70 ERA, 0.93 WHIP and five or more innings and three or less runs in each of his eight starts. If he pitched for Boston there's a good chance he'd be 8-0 and the talk of baseball right now.

And he keeps getting better. His batting average, OBA and slugging percentage allowed went down from April to May to June. Now he just needs the support from the offense and the pen to pick up some wins.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:02 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
April 01, 2007
MVP Age
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When I think about who might win the NL MVP, the candidates come easily. Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard are at the peak of their production and already great hitters, and you can easily throw out half a dozen other likely candidates. But in thinking about the AL candidates, I found myself naming older players (Manny Ramirez, A-Rod, Vald Guerrero) or young ones (Mauer, Morneau). I wasn't coming up with names in the prime years of production, so I looked to see who was playing this year with a seasonal age between 25 and 28 (born from 7/1/1978 to 6/30/1982). So here's some names at an age where you might see an MVP season:

  • Hank Blalock. Disappointing is the word for Blalock so far. Maybe if Ron Washington works some magic, he'll return to the form of his early career. I don't hold much of a chance of him winning the MVP, but now's the time for him to break out.
  • Carl Crawford. Carl does things sports writers like. He hits for a high average, runs well, and has some power. If he can get his homer total over 30, he'll pull in some votes.
  • Jhonny Peralta. He'll need to return to his 2005 numbers, but any time a shortstop posts a great offensive season, he should be an MVP candidate. How much his defense holds him back only the voters know.
  • Alex Rios. His power took a big step forward in 2006, and he'll need to take another to have a shot at the award. And avoid freak illnesses.
  • Nick Swisher. His on base average and slugging percentage are fine, but he needs to make them great to win the award from first base. His low batting average makes him less appealing to voters.
  • Mark Teahen. Like Rios, Teahen needs to keep improving his power numbers. A poor offense around him will hurt his RBI totals, which voters love.
  • Mark Teixeira. His 2005 number put him seventh on the MVP ballot. If he can crack 40 homers or more, he'll move up from that spot.
  • Kevin Youkilis. Youkilis' seasonal age is 28 this year and he's never shown a lot of power. He's a long shot.

If you think I missed some age appropriate AL player, let me know.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:08 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
January 14, 2007
Dapper Pitcher
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Aaron Laffey, an Indians prospect, is this year's winner of the Dapper Dan award.

The Dapper Dan Club of Allegany County is hopeful Laffey will be back in Cumberland before the final Sunday of this month as the club will honor him with its top award, the George W. Stevenson-Nicholas A. Perlozzo Memorial Award, annually presented to the person who brings the most national recognition to the Cumberland area through athletics.

The 59th annual Dapper Dan Awards Banquet is Sunday, Jan. 28, 5 p.m., at the Ali Ghan Shrine Club and when Laffey receives this year's top honor he will be following in the footsteps of some very select company from the baseball world, including Sam Perlozzo, manager of the Baltimore Orioles, who last year was the recipient of the club's top honor for the fifth time.

The Indians are taking a long look at Laffey after putting him on the 40-man roster. His strength as a pitcher is keeping the ball in the park.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 02, 2007
Bloggies
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The Bloggies are now accepting nominations for your favorite web logs.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:28 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 31, 2006
Honoring a Trio
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The Twins superstar trio wins the Pioneer Press Sports Figures of 2006.

Usually, we name only one figure. But how do you separate these three? All had a larger-than-life impact on the Twins' entertaining season.

It's interesting how all three wound up where they are today. There was no grand plan. Instead, circumstances brought them together at just the right time.

Santana spent four years toiling in the minor leagues for the Houston Astros. The book on him was: hard-thrower who almost never uses his change-up. The Twins projected him as maybe a No. 3 starter.

Morneau was supposed to be the Twins catcher of the future. Then he hurt his elbow and for a while became a man without a position.

When Joe Mauer was drafted No. 1 overall in 2001, a lot of people yelped in protest. Exactly why, they wanted to know, didn't Terry Ryan take pitcher Mark Prior?

But here they are. And, all in all, everything seems to have worked out pretty well.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 15, 2006
O'Neil Honored
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Buck O'Neil posthumously received the Medal of Freedom:

In a 40-minute ceremony under the glittering chandeliers of the East Room, Bush lauded O'Neil for helping break down the barriers of racial prejudice. Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier in 1947, but by then it was too late for O'Neil. "Buck O'Neil lived long enough to see baseball and America change for the better," Bush told the assembled audience. "He's one of the people we can thank for that. Buck O'Neil was a legend and a beautiful human being and we honor the memory of Buck O'Neil."

It's too bad this didn't happen sooner, so Buck could enjoy the award.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
December 09, 2006
Looking for Nominations
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Athletics Nation solicits nominations for the Alex Sanchez award:

Really, there has to be an Alex Sanchez Award, so that Neifi Perez can actually be acknowledged for his ability to maintain gainful employment 10 years in a row while sporting a career OPS of .681. Somehow we need an excuse to celebrate Scott Elarton, whose pitching motion and ERA are about equally funny, and John Wasdin, whose bobblehead is actually positioned so he is gazing at the left-center field bleachers.
Posted by StatsGuru at 03:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Fine on the Farm
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The Cleveland Indians took home the Organization of the Year award from Topps. The Indians minor league players won more Topps awards during the season than any other farm system:

The Indians' individual winners were Jason Dubois (Class AAA All-Star), Andy Marte (June player of month) and Jeremy Sowers (May player of month) of the Buffalo Bisons; Kevin Kouzmanoff (May player of month) and Adam Miller (Class AA All-Star and July player of month) of the Akron Aeros; Brian Barton (Class A All-Star), Jordan Brown (August player of month), Ryan Goleski (May player of month) and Chuck Lofgren (Class A All-Star); and Neil Wagner (Class A All-Star) of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers.
Posted by StatsGuru at 09:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 22, 2006
Rounding Up Reaction
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SethSpeaks makes his case for Justin Morneau winning the MVP, and also rounds up contrary opinions, including yours truly. Meanwhile, Ryan at ProTrade.com voices his disdain for the choice.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
November 21, 2006
Interview With Cowley
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Baseball Think Factory and a comment here link to a WFAN interview with Joe Cowley, the writer who voted Jeter sixth on his ballot. Cowley doesn't do a very good job defending his vote. Well worth a listen.

Correction: Fixed spelling of Cowley.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:51 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)
Morneau Wins MVP
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Justin Morneau won the AL MVP. How uncreative. More later when I see the voting.

Update: CBSSportsline has some voting details. Jeter received more 1st + 2nd place votes, but also was listed as sixth by one writer. I agree with one of the comments that noted the anti-NY bias in the voting. As well as the Yankees have done over the last eleven years, they've picked up very few awards. Mauer finishes sixth. Clearly the voters don't know how to value a good catcher who can also hit.

Update: Ben Kabak sends a link to the complete voting. Mauer is all over the list. He's as high as 3rd and as low as 10th, getting votes at every position in between. Interestingly, there seem to be two consensuses about him. One group of nine had him around 3-4, another group of eight had him ranked 7-8. I count 23 votes for Joe, meaning five voters left him off the ballot entirely. Just amazing. Yogi Berra never would have won an MVP with this group.

There's an excellent comment thread underway here as well. Be sure to check them out. As for questionable players appearing on the ballot at all, that's what ranking players 1-10 is for. If you have a favorite, you can vote him low (or even high) and not have it effect the voting that much. I don't have a real problem with that. When I make out ballots like this, I often put someone I like that doesn't have much support just to give people something to talk about.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:05 PM | Comments (80) | TrackBack (0)
A Tie?
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I just saw a rumor that Jeter and Morneau are going to tie for the AL MVP.

Correction: It's Morneau, not Mauer. I guess it was wishful thinking on my part.

Update: If Mourneau does indeed win the MVP, I'm taking full credit. :-)

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:06 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
AL MVP Day
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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 StatsGuru at 09:02 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack (0)
November 20, 2006
Howard Wins MVP
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Howard won the trophy. I'll have more when I get home.

Update: I'm blown away by the lack of support for Carlos Beltran. He only garnered one second place vote and five third place votes. How you vote for another first baseman (Berkman) ahead of Beltran is beyond me.

As for Howard and Pujols, the consensus was that they were 1-2, and more voters put Howard one. It was a close vote, I just thought Beltran would get some #1 votes and more #2 votes.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:08 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack (0)
NL MVP Today
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The National League MVP announcement comes later today, and I expect Albert Pujols to take home the award. My vote originally would have gone to Carlos Beltran, however, based on the fact that he plays a much tougher defensive position. However, I looked at the PMR data today on the two players, and Albert fielded incredibly well at first this season, so well in fact that I believe it negates the defensive spectrum distance. I'll have more on this when I reach home later today. The two were almost even in win shares, with Pujols having more total win shares but Beltran doing better in win shares above bench.

For all the fans of Ryan Howard, there's two very interesting things at work here. The first is that Ryan played in a high run environment, which diminishes the value of his offense. Making up for that somewhat is the fact that Ryan played very well on the road. However, Pujols and Beltran both played in low run environments. That's why they are so far ahead in win shares. Their runs are valued more highly than Howard's.

However, if you look at the three batting on the road, Ryan emerges as the best hitter of the three. Beltran is close and a good centerfielder to boot. In other words, there are extremely good arguments for all three of these players. It will be interesting to see just how close the votes finishes.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:53 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
November 19, 2006
Ripken on Howard
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Ryan Howard may win the NL MVP award tomorrow. If he does, he'll become the second person to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in consecutive seasons. The other was Cal Ripken:

Ripken more than anybody knows what Howard is going through.

The expectations on the field.

The sudden fame.

"The coolest thing in the world is that you had name recognition in the sport," Ripken said of those first two seasons. "All of a sudden, when somebody would mention your name they would know who you were. The second greatest thing was having face recognition outside of your uniform. You're walking down the street in New York and a truck driver would yell, 'Hey, Cal, we're going to kick your butt tonight.' I think that's cool. The only thing you have to really worry about is that you have to remember who you are. You're just a baseball player. You have to maintain perspective while some of these other things change around you, which are really cool. I think the biggest challenge for all of us is trying to maintain perspective and trying to maintain our own identity and who we are. Don't get caught up in the other stuff."


Posted by StatsGuru at 10:43 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
November 18, 2006
Alternate MVPs
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Yard Work is running a series on the AL MVP. Just keep scrolling.

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November 16, 2006
Frandsen Wins Stenson
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Giants second baseman Kevin Frandsen is this year's winner of the Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award from the Arizona Fall League.

"The six guys who were nominated, it was for a reason," said Frandsen, who was leading the league with a .418 batting average and .511 on-base percentage heading into Wednesday night's game. "Playing against all of these guys for the last six weeks, you understand what the qualities are. Knowing about Dernell and the two other winners before this one -- Mark (Teahen) and Andre (Ethier) -- you know the way they play the game. I'm very fortunate and very grateful for the opportunity to be nominated.

"To win, more than anything, it's a tribute to who Dernell was."

The Fall League instituted the Stenson Award in 2004 in memory of former AFL player Dernell Stenson, who was killed in 2003 in Arizona during the AFL season. He played for the Grand Canyon Rafters in 1998 and was playing for the Scottsdale Scorpions at the time of his death.

A donation in Frandsen's name will be made to a charity of his choice. Funds for the donation were provided by MLB.com's auction of an Alfonso Soriano autographed photo. Soriano played in the AFL in 1998 and was elected this year to the league's Hall of Fame.

This is a fine way to honor a player who met an untimely and vicious death. Congratulations to Kevin Frandsen. The previous winners seemed to do well in the majors.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Santana Leaves No Doubt
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Johan Santana wins his second Cy Young award, and for the second time it's unanimous.

Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers is the only pitcher to win a Cy Young award three times unanimously, and he did it when it was given to only one pitcher in both leagues.

I suspect as long as he's healthy, Santana is going to compete for the award for many more years.

The surprise for me is Wang beating out Halladay for second place. The voting is here. I find it fascinating. Wang pulled down more second place votes than Halladay, but Halladay appears on more ballots. I get the feeling that there's a group of writers who still put a premium on wins, and a group that puts a premium on what the pitcher accomplishes. Those two pretty even, with the wins group still dominating a bit. I suspect that will disappear in a few more years.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:38 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Santana's Cy
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The American League presents its Cy Young Award today, and Johan Santana would appear to be a certainty. SB Nation (which predicted every award so far), made Johan a unanimous choice. The Baroque Rocker led the majors in ERA by two tenths of a run. He struck out more than a batter an inning (best in the AL) while keeping his walks per 9 innings below 2.0. Not only was he good, but he worked a lot, tying for the AL lead in games started and leading the league in innings pitched. He's an easy choice for #1.

The interesting race is for #3. Roy Halladay was the consensus #2 pick, but I wonder if Wang will really finish third. Chien-Ming posted the same record as Johan. His great strength was keeping the ball in the park. He led the majors in fewest home runs per nine innings.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 15, 2006
Top Picks
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Jim Leyland and Joe Girardi each win Manager of the Year, as expected. Leyland took a long term loser to the World Series, while Girardi guided a bunch of rookies to wild card contention. A great job by both men. Girardi loses his job, but becomes the first manager with a losing record to win the award.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Top Skipper
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The Baseball Writers announce the Manager of the Year awards later today. Here's how SB Nation voted. If Joe Girardi wins, as expected, he'll be the first manager with a losing record to take home the trophy. Winning the division isn't a prerequisite, nor even owning a good record. Tony Pena won with just 83 wins, but like Girardi, his Royals greatly exceeded expectations that season.

I'm also interested in seeing how much support Joe Torre receives. I thought this was one of Joe's better years as a manager, as he actually faced some adversity with all the injuries to the Yankees.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 14, 2006
Webb Wins Cy
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Brandon Webb beats Trevor Hoffman in a close race for the NL Cy Young Award. Webb polled 15 first place votes to Hoffman's 12, but also appeared on 29 ballots compared to 23 for Hoffman. Interestingly, it looks like most writers put Carpenter second, but with few first place votes he wound up third in the race. I think it's a good decision.

Webb threw a career-high 235 innings on the season while recording a career-high 178 strikeouts in addition to five complete games and three shutouts. Webb boasted the fourth-best ERA in the Majors and ranked second in innings pitched. He tied for second in complete games and tied for first in shutouts.

Webb went unbeaten in his first 13 starts, while posting an 8-0 record with a 2.14 ERA over that span.

Webb was in a sweet spot this season. His strikeouts were high enough to take pressure off his defense, but when called on, the fielders behind him were superb, posting a .713 DER. One reason for the complete games was his efficiency, as he allowed just 3.5 pitches per batter faced. It was a fine season by Brandon. He's a deserving recipient.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Cy Young Voting
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The baseball writers award the NL Cy Young throphy today. It looks like Trevor Hoffman polled well:

Trevor Hoffman has a fighting chance of winning his first Cy Young Award today. Four of six voters polled said they listed Hoffman first on their three-deep ballot.

Thirty-two members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America cast votes at regular season's end. Other candidates include starters Chris Carpenter (Cardinals), Roy Oswalt (Astros), Brandon Webb (Diamondbacks) and Bronson Arroyo (Reds).

The Arizona Republic makes the case for Webb:

Statistically, nobody figures to run away with the NL Cy Young. All of the above, along with a few others, were relatively close in the numbers department. Most insiders, though, believe it will come down to Webb, Carpenter and Hoffman.

Webb (16-8) tied for the most wins in the league along with five others, including Zambrano (16-7). Carpenter was 15-8 and Hoffman led the league with 46 saves. Webb held the league ERA title until suffering a bitter defeat to the Padres on the final day of the regular season, dropping to third (3.10) behind Oswalt (2.98) and Carpenter (3.09).

Webb threw more innings (235) than Carpenter (221 2/3), and Carpenter had more strikeouts (184) than Webb (178). Other key categories were very close, too.

Carpenter may have an edge because the Cardinals were in playoff contention when final balloting was due. Ditto with Hoffman, although typically the Cy Young Award goes to starting pitchers.

Take your pick. I have a tough time giving the award to a player with just 63 innings pitched unless his ERA is microscopic. I'd probably vote for Webb based on playing in a tough home park. My gut, however, is that Carpenter repeats.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:12 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
November 13, 2006
Rookie Winners
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The Baseball Writers picked Justin Verlander and Hanley Ramirez as Rookies of the Year. The AL Voting is here, and Verlander was the clear choice among the writers, although it was nice to see Liriano get one first place vote. Ramirez and Uggla didn't split the vote; Hanely received the most first place tallies as he takes home the Jackie Robinson award. Three Marlins finished in the top four, and six Flordia rookies received votes. I don't have much to argue here, a good job by the writers.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:09 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
Rookie Day
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The Jackie Robinson Award for Rookies of the Year starts off award week this afternoon. Both the NL and AL awards get announced.

In the National League, it's a battle of hitters, while in the AL pitchers lead the way. I agree with the SB Nation voting on this award, in which they chose Hanley Ramirez. However, my guess is Ryan Zimmerman picks up the honor as votes get split between Ramirez and Uggla. Writers who look at home runs and RBI likely go for Uggla ahead of Ramirez; writers that look at OBA and slugging likely vote the other way. Hanley and Ryan are so close, it doesn't really matter, but I would put Ramirez slightly ahead based on a better OBA and slugging percentage, and playing a tougher defensive position.

In the American League, the pitchers dominate. Verlander probably gets the nod by means of pitching a full season. But Liriano struck out 20 more batters in 65 fewer innings. Liriano was so dominating that he even garnered more win shares than Justin. I'd vote Liriano before Verlander. We'll see what the writers thought later today.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 11, 2006
Do Coaches Have a Clue?
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Can anyone explain to me why Joe Crede won the Silver Slugger award for AL third basemen? Here's a breakdown of offensive stats as third basemen in 2006. First of all, the AL is way behind the NL at the position. But Crede isn't even close to the best. How you can compare his stats to A-Rod's and still vote for Joe is beyond me. Even if you really don't like A-Rod, Glaus is still a much better choice.

Given the poor job done by the managers and coaches on their two awards (Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers) the voting should either be changed to a MVP style vote where players are rated, or just take away the vote and give it to some other group. How about the baseball bloggers? :-)

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:04 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
November 08, 2006
Frivolous Awards
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Yesterday, while scanning the headlines I noticed Mark Redman won KC Royals Pitcher of the Year. My immediate reaction was to ignore a worthless story, but Joe Posnanski didn't:

I'm not here to argue whether or not Redman, with his 5.71 ERA (third-worst in the American League for pitchers with more than 25 starts) is more or less deserving of the award than, say, Luke Hudson, who wowed them with a 7-6 record and a 5.12 ERA (best among Royals starters!) or Joe Nelson, who buttoned down nine of 10 save opportunities and will come to camp next year just hoping to win a major-league job.

No, it's quite clear that none of them deserved it. The 2006 Royals plainly did not have a pitcher of the year. They did not have a pitcher you could cheer. They did not have a pitcher persevere. They did not have a pitcher worth a beer.

The Royals had their worst pitching staff ever, and that's saying something. They had a 5.65 ERA, highest in team history. That lovely ERA was also fourth-highest in the American League the last fifty years, not counting seasons shortened by strikes. If you want to count those strike years, the Royals had the sixth-highest ERA in the last 50 years, which doesn't sound much better.

There are so many horrifying and yet mesmerizing pitching numbers to look at -- to repeat my personal favorite, 13 different pitchers started more than five games for these Royals. All 13 had ERAs higher than 5.00. No one will ever break that record. But there are plenty of other glorious stats to consider. For example, the Royals starters allowed hitters a .492 slugging percentage. This was higher than Derek Jeter's slugging percentage, and he's probably going to win the American League MVP award.

Joe's right. When your team is this bad, handing out an award like this just reminds everyone how bad. If your pitcher of the year owns an ERA over five, you know the team's in trouble.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:41 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
November 06, 2006
Late Awards
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It seems MLB is stretching out the big awards this year. We won't see the Rookie of the Year until the 13th of November, and the awards finish with the AL MVP eight days later. Rich Lederer looks at the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year candidates here.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 03, 2006
Golden Oldies
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Rawlings announced the National League gold gloves today, with Greg Maddux picking up #16, tying him with JIm Kaat for most times winning the award. Omar Vizquel picked up his eleventh. Like yesterday, I find it hard to believe that two fielders so along in years are really the best defensive players at their position. Would you really take Vizquel over Furcal or Everett based on defense right now?

There were a couple of youngsters as well. Orlando Hudson won the award at second base, and Albert Pujols won his first.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:26 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
November 02, 2006
Gold Fingers
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MLB announced the Gold Glove Awards today. It's pretty much the same as last year, except Ivan Rodriguez won at catcher and Mark Grudzielanek won at second.

Chavez, Hunter and Ichiro have now each won six consecutive Gold Gloves, while Jeter and Wells are three-time winners.

You know what? There are very few players who are great at something six years in a row. Is there really any reason to think that Ichrio, who's getting older, is really as good as he was in 2001? That some 24 year old right fielder isn't better? The voting process for the gold glove is bad. I believe it's one man one vote with a simple plurality winning. They really should make coaches and managers list a top three.

I hope to get my data for the Probabilistic Model of Range soon so we get a better idea of who really deserved the award.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:25 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)
October 29, 2006
MVP Poll
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John Sickels took an MVP poll and the results are interesting. I agree with the NL winner, but like John I'm surprised that the vote was so lopsided.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:37 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
October 27, 2006
Alert the Media!
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The Soxaholix says something nice about Derek Jeter. (The rest of the strip is pretty funny, too.)

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 25, 2006
Hammerin' Jeter
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Derek Jeter wins the Hank Aaron award for the American League. While Jeter was the MVP, David Ortiz did put up better offensive numbers. It's not a bad call, Jeter was very close. But if it's the award for best offensive player, the David should have the crown.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:16 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Hammerin' Howard
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Ryan Howard takes home the Hank Aaron Award as the National League's best offensive player. Congratulations to Ryan! The fans who voted, however, did not look at win shares.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:04 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
October 15, 2006
Bottom of the Barrel
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Bleed Cubbie Blue presents the Worst of Awards for 2006.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 11, 2006
Peer Review
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Ryan Howard picked up The Sporting News Player of the Year Award yesterday. It's voted on by players. Ortiz came in second, Pujols third. Clearly, MLB players dig the long ball. Congratulations to Ryan Howard on the award!

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:54 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
October 07, 2006
Comebackers
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Nomar Garciaparra and Jim Thome take home Comeback Player of the Year Awards.

Garciaparra received 72,054 votes in fan balloting announced Saturday by the commissioner's office.

Thome, dealt to Chicago by Philadelphia last November following the emergence of Ryan Howard, batted .288 with 42 homers, 109 RBIs and 107 walks. He received 55,587 votes.

I saw comments today looking for Cashman's head because the Yankees didn't advance past the Tigers. But look at Ken Williams. He made a great trade, picking up Thome for Rowand. He gave up some defense for a big boost in offense. He did everything right and the White Sox didn't compete. He recognized Thome's potential, and it didn't pay off. It show you can do everything right and still lose.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 30, 2006

I'm listening to an MVP discussion on Fox. How can they leave Carlos Beltran out of the discussion?

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:42 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 11, 2006
The World's Smallest Violin
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David Ortiz is already whinning over the fact that he won't win the MVP award.

"I'll tell you one thing," Ortiz said. "If I get 50 home runs and 10 more RBI [which would give him 137], that's going to be a round number that no one else in the American League will have."

"But they'll vote for a position player, use that as an excuse. They're talking about [Derek] Jeter a lot, right? He's done a great job, he's having a great season, but Jeter is not a 40-homer hitter or an RBI guy. It doesn't matter how much you've done for your ball club, the bottom line is, the guy who hits 40 home runs and knocks in 100, that's the guy you know helped your team win games.

Of course! (Slaps myself on the head.) Home runs and RBI are all that matter! Why didn't I realize that years ago. Playing shortstop or catcher doesn't matter at all! They contribute just as much as defensively as a designated hitter. And of course, Ortiz totally leaves out of the conversation Manny Ramirez, who despite all the games he missed was still number one in the AL in win shares through Sept. 4.

Ortiz said if he had a vote, he might cast it for Jermaine Dye or Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox, or Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins.

And then he says this:

"All depends on who makes the playoffs," he said.

So making the playoffs doesn't matter for Ortiz, but it does matter for everyone else?

David even takes a shot at the rest of the Red Sox. On Jeter:

"Don't get me wrong -- he's a great player, having a great season, but he's got a lot of guys in that lineup," Ortiz continued. "Top to bottom, you've got a guy who can hurt you. Come hit in this lineup, see how good you can be."

Exactly how many times did the top of order save you an at bat so you could get the game winning hit, Papi?

There are lots of reasons to love David Ortiz the player. There are lots of reasons to vote for him for MVP, and lots of reasons not to rate him higher than fourth of fifth on the ballot. Complaining about it doesn't make him look any better, and bringing the team down with your complaints doesn't make him sound like a team player. I wonder if we're headed back to the days of 25 cabs for 25 players?

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:08 AM | Comments (31) | TrackBack (0)
September 06, 2006
MVP Case
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Was Watching makes the case for Jeter winning the MVP. Without going into the merits of the case, I find it interesting that the two stats used to measure clutch performance appear to be totally out of sync with each other. Look at David Ortiz. Measured by the situational adjustment to runs created, Ortiz is not clutch in 2006. Measured by individual plate appearances, he is.

The way I interpret this is Ortiz's perceived clutchness is the result of a few well timed plate appearances. Jeter, who is good in both, spreads it out over the whole game.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:55 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
September 01, 2006
Players of the Month
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Offensive Player of the Month for August is a tough choice between too similar players, one in a playoff race, the other playing out the season. Travis Hafner and Ryan Howard are both first basemen. They both are sluggers who do an excellent job getting on base. Both scored 25 runs in month. Both walked 22 times. Howard leads by one home run, but Hafner leads in extra-base hits 22 to 17. Howard's big advantage over Hafner is RBI, 41 to 30. RBI is a team influenced stat, however. RBI result from a combination of a batter's skills and the ability of his team to get on base.

The RBI percentage chart makes a pretty good case for Miguel Cabrera. But if you look down, you see Howard did indeed have many more base runners on than Hafner, but also delivered a higher percentage.

In figuring runs created, Bill James now uses two situational measures to adjust the result. Home runs with men on base and batting average with runners in scoring position. Howard wins both of those. Eight of his fourteen homers came with men on base, vs. four of thirteen for Hafner. He also hit extremely well with runners in scoring position. Hafner did fine, but not as well.

As for meaningful home runs, half of Howard's came with the game tied or trailing by a run. Hafner did him one better in this category, with eight of his coming in that situation.

But in the end, no matter how I try to spin the RBI, I'm left looking at a 20 point difference in OBA and a 100 point difference in slugging percentage, both in favor of Hafner. I can't help thinking if the two switched team, the Phillies would have scored even more runs in August. Congratulations to Travis Hafner, the Baseball Musings Player of the Month for August, 2006!

Pitcher of the Month was extremely easy this time around. Esteban Loaiza earned his money from the Athletics this month as he posted the best ERA in the majors, 1.48. He did in while allowing 1 home run, 4 walks and striking out 31. No one close to him in ERA put up those kind of numbers. If you look at the high strikeout pitchers for the month, none come close to him in ERA. On top of that, he was undefeated in six starts. Congratulations to Esteban Loaiza, the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month for August 2006.

Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
July 2006Chase Utley, Philadelphia PhilliesFrancisco Liriano, Minnesota Twins
June 2006Joe Mauer, Minnesota TwinsJohan Santana, Minnesota Twins
May 2006Jason Bay, Pittsburgh PiratesC.C. Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
April 2006Albert Pujols, St. Louis CardinalsGreg Maddux, Chicago Cubs
September 2005Randy Winn, SF GiantsCC Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 07:53 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
August 07, 2006
MVP Game
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The Twins/Tigers game is not only featuring two good young pitchers, but two potential American League MVPs. If you take a look at the AL leaders in win shares, Joe Mauer is tied for the lead with Manny Ramirez and Derek Jeter, but right behind is Carlos Guillen. Both players play important defensive positions but get on base and hit for power like first basemen. With the Tigers running away with the league, people should be looking for a potential MVP on the team. Carlos Guillen gets the nod.

I also find it interesting that while the buzz in Boston is Ortiz for MVP, Manny's having the better year. Even excluding defense, Ramirez is generating more wins with his bat than Ortiz. Both are pretty neutral in the runs created valuation of clutch, Manny at -0.8, Ortiz at -1.8. In other words, their batting average with runners in scoring position and home runs with men on base is what you'd expect from them. It's going to be a very interesting vote if it remains this close for the rest of the season.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:38 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Beltran Comeback?
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Why is Carlos Beltran included in the Comeback Player of the Year candidates? Beltran picked up 21 win shares in 2005. My no stretch of the imagination did he have a bad season. It just wasn't as good as people expected.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
August 01, 2006
Players of the Month
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The offensive player of the month is an extremely difficult choice in July. Start with Chase Utley. Not only did he hit safely in every July game, but he led the majors in OBA. He scored 26 runs (tied for first) and drove in 24. He posted a .755 slugging percentage to go along with his great OBA.

David Ortiz led the majors in slugging percentage at .798. His 14 home runs and 35 RBI also led the majors.

In between those two is Alfonso Soriano, who finished second in OBA and second in slugging percentage. The high OBA coming from Alfonso is a truly amazing feat.

Carlos Beltran hit three grand slams, and Juan Rivera had the month of his career. But I really think the award comes down to a choice between Utley and Ortiz. How to tease them apart? Look at the splits for Chase and David. They both performed well away from home. They both performed well in "clutch" situations. Ortiz drove in eight runs with the game tied. Utley hit over .500 with his team trailing. You can't even distinguish them by RBI percentage. Utley is at 23.38 for the month, Ortiz at 23.33.

Utley's OPS is 1.230. Ortiz's sits at 1.227. It's the OBA vs. power question, and does Ortiz's clutch persona trump that? The Sabermetric part of me wants to give the award to Utley. The fan in me wants to give it to Ortiz.

The sabermetrican wins, and Chase Utley is the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the month for July 2006. Congratulations, Chase!

Pitcher of the month isn't quite so difficult. Six hurlers posted ERAs under 2.00 in at least 25 innings of work, with Justin Verlander leading the way with a mark of 1.01. However, Justin made just four starts and only pitched 26 2/3 innings. Jered Weaver didn't allow a home run in the month, but again, he's at the lower end of innings pitched in the month. John Lackey pitched an impressive moth, but his ERA is about 1/2 run higher than Francisco Liriano.

Jeff Francis deserves a deeper look. He made three of his five starts at Coors, allowing zero runs in two of those, including a complete game shutout. He wasn't, however, as consistently good as Bedard and Liriano. So it comes down to those two.

Francisco made one bad start, after a tiring All-Star break. Each picked up four wins. Liriano also allowed fewer hits in more innings, giving him better BA, OBA and slugging percentages allowed. Couple that with a better ERA and a much higher K per 9, and Francisco Liriano is the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month. Congratulations, Francisco!


Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
June 2006Joe Mauer, Minnesota TwinsJohan Santana, Minnesota Twins
May 2006Jason Bay, Pittsburgh PiratesC.C. Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
April 2006Albert Pujols, St. Louis CardinalsGreg Maddux, Chicago Cubs
September 2005Randy Winn, SF GiantsCC Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 08:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
July 01, 2006
Players of the Month
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A pair of Twins made this a tough choice for the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month. Joe Mauer led the majors in batting average and OBA. His teammate Justin Morneau led in slugging percentage and RBI. But Mauer is a catcher, which makes his contributions all the more important. I'm giving the edge to Mauer here.

His other competition is from Jose Reyes. He had an amazing month, finally living up to his billing. To great batting numbers, he also led the majors in steals with 14. Again, being a shortstop, the superlative batting numbers mean more.

But Joe's numbers are just better. It's awfully hard to argue with a .528 OBA and an 1.152 OPS. Joe even managed to swipe three bases without being caught. So your Baseball Musings Offensive Player for June is Joe Mauer. Congratulations, Joe!

On the pitching side, the Twins also take the award as Johan Santana stands out head and shoulders above the league. He not only led the majors with a 1.05 ERA, he did it with more innings and more starts than his competitors. Chris Young was great, but only averaged six innings a start. Bonderman struck out more per innings, but he also walked twice as many. Combine all that with a 5-0 record (equaled by Mark Redman) and Santana is the clear winner of the Pitcher of the Month for June. Congratulations, Johan!

Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
May 2006Jason Bay, Pittsburgh PiratesC.C. Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
April 2006Albert Pujols, St. Louis CardinalsGreg Maddux, Chicago Cubs
September 2005Randy Winn, SF GiantsCC Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 12:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
June 01, 2006
Players of the Month
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The month of May saw many great performances by both pitchers and hitters. Unlike April, no clear cut winner emerged in either category.

Among the hitters, three players from the Red Sox could easily get the honor. Kevin Youkilis performed like the ultimate leadoff batter, leading the majors in on-base average at .463. Manny Ramirez was only ten points behind that, but slugged .714. Mark Loretta collected 44 hits for a for a .442 OBA. Bobby Abreu, Nomar Garciaparra and Ichiro Suzuki were all worthy of consideration. But in my mind it came down to the sluggers, Matt Holliday and Jason Bay.

Based on averages alone, Holliday wins it. But Matt neither drove in or scored as many runs as Bay. I find it very unusual for a player to collect 18 extra-base hits and only drive in 15 runs. It turns out 17 of Matt's 18 extra-base hits came with the bases empty, including all 8 of his home runs. Even though he collected seven hits with runners in scoring position, those hits only yielded 7 RBI. On the other hand, Matt did it well on the road, so he doesn't lose points for the Coors effect.

Bay, on the other hand, drove in 22 runs with his 12 homers, and added another 13 on top of that. He scored 21 runs to Matt's 20. He even stole two bases without getting caught. And he homered in six straight games. In a very tough month to pick a winner, Jason Bay wins by a nose.

Congratulations to Jason Bay, the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month!

A number of pitchers in May posted numbers worthy of the honor. Tom Glavine's 5-0 record tied for wins and led in winning percentage. Johan Santana's strikeout to walk ratio topped 10. Pedro Martinez pitched great, but didn't win a game, going 0-1 for the month. Scott Kazmir did everything right for a poor Tampa Bay team.

But it does come down to run prevention, and two pitchers stood out with the lowest ERAs in their leagues. Jason Schmidt led the NL with a 1.17 mark, while C.C. Sabathia took the AL lead with a 1.20 ERA. It's very tough to distinguish the two. Both pitched two complete games and one shutout. C.C. struck out three more. Jason walked one less and allowed one fewer home run. Sabathia allowed five more hits, but didn't throw a wild pitch. Sabathia beat the White Sox twice, Schmidt took home wins over the Cubs and the Marlins. Sabathia won one more game, but he also lost one more.

The award goes to Sabathia, however, because pitching in the AL, his job is tougher. He faced a designated hitter in all six of his starts, while Jason did in just one. This is C.C.'s second pitcher of the month award.

Congratulations to C.C. Sabathia, the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month!

Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
April 2006Albert Pujols, St. Louis CardinalsGreg Maddux, Chicago Cubs
September 2005Randy Winn, SF GiantsCC Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 07:51 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
May 01, 2006
Players of the Month
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Albert Pujols made offensive player of the month an easy choice. While setting a monthly record for home runs might be enough, Pujols led the majors in slugging percentage and RBI, was second in OBA and runs scored and walked more than Barry Bonds. Pujols even stole two bases without getting caught! Jason Giambi deserved consideration, also. His OBA ranked ahead of Albert, but he played three fewer games, scored less and drove in fewer runs.

Congratulations to Albert Pujols, the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month for April 2006!

The pitcher of the month is a tougher choice. Thomson of the Braves leads the majors in ERA, but all he has to show for it is an 0-1 record. Greg Maddux's ERA is a close second, and he won all five of his starts. More importantly, his strikeout, walk and home run number are all good.

Curt Schilling posted better strikeout and walk number than Maddux, and did it over six starts. He allowed four home runs, however. Mike Mussina posted similar number to Schilling, with a better ERA. It was a good month for the old men. But it's tough to beat Maddux this month. He did everything a pitcher needs to do, and it resulted in a very low ERA and five wins.

Congratulations to Greg Maddux, the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month for April 2006!

Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
September 2005Randy Winn, SF GiantsCC Sabathia, Cleveland Indians
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 07:12 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
April 11, 2006
Player of the Week
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Chris Shelton was the obvious choice the the AL, but Garrett Atkins of the Rockies took home National League honors. He was one of the few Rockies who hit well at home in their opening home stand, then did a job on San Diego.

His career home/road splits, however, are more what you'd expect from a Rockies player.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 30, 2006
All They Do is Give Out Awards
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MVPs and other awards were presented last night at the 83rd annual New York baseball dinner. Ripken, Gibson and Cepeda were among the Hall of Fame talent handing out the hardware. One thing I didn't know was that Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson became friends:

Mets outfielder Cliff Floyd took home the "Good Guy" award, while Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner -- forever linked by that famous groundball in the 1986 World Series -- received the "Willie, Mickey and The Duke" award.

Wilson, one of the most popular players in Mets history, spoke at the podium about the former Boston first baseman.

"Billy and I are really good friends now and we see each other quite a lot. He is a true friend and he is a true professional," Wilson said. "As great as that moment was for myself and New York City, I don't think that defines Bill Buckner's life or career."

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:22 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
January 17, 2006
Awards Dinner
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The baseball writers gave out the National League hardware last night, with St. Louis figuring prominently with both the MVP and the Cy Young. Jim Edmonds had the best quote after being presented with the Gold Glove:

"I don't know if I'm supposed to thank Tony for yelling at me to back up," Edmonds said, "or thank our pitchers for getting the ball up in the zone and keeping me in the highlights."
Posted by StatsGuru at 08:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 21, 2005
Red Reporter Awards
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The nominations are in. You have until January 2nd to vote for your favorite sports blogs at Red Reporter.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 15, 2005
Derrek Lee Number Three
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The NL voting is up, and I just don't understand it. Pujols and Andruw Jones pretty much split the 1-2 vote, while Derrek Lee polled 30 third place tallies. How could one vote for Pujols 1st and Lee third? They're so close I can't make up my mind as to which one should get the award. Did the voters just shove Andruw in there because Atlanta won? Because it's important to recognize a 50 home run hitter? If you think Pujols is the MVP, how can you not think that Lee is second?

I'm somewhat surprised that Morgan Ensberg finished fourth. It's not that he didn't have a great season, it's that the Astros won when Berkman hit. The way voters go, I'd believe that the Berkman factor would have taken votes away from Morgan.

Giles and Bay were recognized by the voters. Giles finished 9th with Bay coming in 12th. I'd put them higher, but it's a good finish for both.

For the first time since 1989, Barry Bonds failed to poll a single vote.

And who voted Jose Reyes 10th? Please.

The voters picked a good winner. They did a better job on the MVP than the Cy Young. They got 2nd place wrong in the NL, but that's a lot better than getting 1st wrong.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:51 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)
Pujols Wins
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Albert Pujols is the NL MVP. It was a close vote, but it was close between Albert and Andruw Jones, not Albert and Derrek Lee. I'll have more when they post the complete voting.

Congratulations to Albert Pujols on his much deserved win!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
ESPN Picks Pujols
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The writers at ESPN.com were polled, and voted for either Pujols or Andruw Jones, with Albert getting nearly 2/3 of the vote. I find it amazing that not one writer picked Derrek Lee. These two are so close, it's tough to slide a nanotube between them. Pujols has the most win shares. Lee is #1 in the majors in VORP among position players.

The thinking appears to be going this way; in a head-to-head comparison between Pujols and Lee, Pujols wins. That could be due to the "won the division bias." The real argument that appears to be going on in the mind of the voters is whether 50 home runs is more valuable than being outstanding in all categories. Those that value the homer are voting for Jones. Where does this leave Lee? I wonder if he'll be second on all the ballots that have Pujols first, or will the 50 home run argument cause Andruw to be voted ahead of the Cubs first baseman?

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:54 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Clutch Cargo
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The Baseball Crank and Was Watching fight back against the idea that Ortiz was much more clutch than A-Rod. The Cranks' argument can be summed up as, "If you win games early, you don't need to be clutch late." The Watcher notices that A-Rod did pretty well late in games anyway.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:41 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Reasons for Voting
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The Boston Herald interviews a few AL voters about their decision making process, including the person who put Vald #1.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
NL MVP Day
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There's a good discussion of how writers view the MVP award in this article about Albert Pujols.

The MVP is "the most - I won't use 'valuable' here - prestigious award out there, I think," Boyle said. "The writers have done a good job of not defining what 'valuable' is. There are no statistics, no parameters that make it automatic. That makes for good conversation, that heightens interest in it. 'Valuable.' The fact that the word 'valuable' can mean so many different things helps the award's value, makes it mean more."

I see the NL race as a close one between Pujols and Derrek Lee. Their stats are very close. Win shares gives a slight advantage to Pujols, but you can flip a coin. I'm a bit surprised reports put Andruw Jones ahead of Lee. I assume that's the "team winning the division" bias. By that thinking, Pujols should win easily since his team not only won the division but had the best record in the league.

I'm also interested to see how well Brian Giles and Jayson Bay finish. Giles road stats are excellent and was the big offensive reason the Padres made the playoffs. Bay was also hurt by his ballpark, as he slugged 23 home runs on the road but just 9 at home. His 23 on the road were second to Andruw Jones' 30.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 14, 2005
A-Rod MVP
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Alex Rodriguez won the AL MVP today in a very tight vote, out distancing David Ortiz by 24 points. The closeness of the race indicates to me that the DH position wasn't that big a factor in the voter's minds. They were willing to vote Ortiz over other fielders like Ramirez and Sheffield, who in total contributed more than than Ortiz did with just the bat.

I agree with the outcome, but I'm surprised at how close it turned out to be. I was expecting the lack of contribution from Ortiz on the defensive side to weigh very heavily with voters. I guess a small number of big hits is more meaningful than a complete season of excellence.

This ends a 20 year MVP drought for the Yankees, do did very well in the voting with four players finishing in the top 10. Given the Yankees excellence since 1994, this is the only the third major award they've won in that time (the others being Jeter's Jackie Robinson award for best rookie and Roger Clemens' Cy Young). It also breaks the AL West's strangle hold on the MVP. The last nine went to players from that division.

The complete voting is here. It shows how little voters value defense as people like Jhonny Peralta and Aaron Rowand did not pick up a single vote.

Congratulations to Alex Rodriguez on his second MVP. He probably should have at least four by now.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:13 PM | Comments (27) | TrackBack (0)
MVP Monday
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The American League MVP award is announced later today, and Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe makes the best case for A-Rod I've seen; A-Rod had a better year. He lists various batting categories, and Alex finishes ahead of David in most of them. He then takes on the stat cherry pickers:

Ortiz's supporters point to Big Papi's clear advantage in batting with runners in scoring position (.352 to .290), RISP with two out (.368 to .302), and batting in ''close and late" situations (.346 with 11 HRs and 33 RBIs, to .293 with 4 and 12). But it's also foolish to suggest most of A-Rod's production came when it didn't matter. Using one arbitrary comparison, their batting against the other playoff qualifiers, A-Rod hit .325 with 13 home runs and 30 RBIs, Ortiz .273 with 9 home runs and 33 RBIs.

What's more, Rodriguez beats Ortiz in Win Shares, even without his fielding numbers.

If the DH is really discounted by the voters, we shouldn't see a close vote. And if the voters really believe a DH shouldn't get a lot of consideration, they may vote Ramirez or Sheffield ahead of Ortiz. I'd also like to see where Jhonny Peralta finishes. His defense was a big reason Cleveland had their great second half. I wonder how many voters will recognize that?

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:05 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (1)
November 10, 2005
Cy Carpenter
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Chris Carpenter takes home the National League Cy Young award for 2005. It was a close vote, with Carpenter edging Dontrelle Willis despite a better ERA by Willis and one more win. It looks like the NL voters applied the "Team winning the division makes you a better pitcher" test.

Of course, Roger Clemens deserved this award more than the one he received last season. Andy Pettitte was also an arguably better choice than either Carpenter or Willis. Pettitte didn't win 20, but he had an excellent winning percentage (17-9 record) and a great ERA 2.39. Plus, his team made the playoffs.

One factor that hurt Clemens (and rightfully so) was his durability in games. Roger seldom went more than seven innings while Carpenter and Willis posted seven complete games each. It's not a bad vote, not nearly as bad as the AL. It's just not clear to me the logic the voters used in selecting Carpenter over Willis.

Update: In looking at the voting and thinking about this some more, I'm surprised there were no ballots that did not include Carpenter or Willis. I could easily see a writer submitting Clemens, Pettitte, Willis or Pettitte, Clemens, Carpenter. Not even the Houston writers saw that they had two Cy Young candidates. I guess there's not that much diversity of thought among beat writers.

Congratulations to Carpenter on the honor!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:12 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)
November 09, 2005
Managers of the Year
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Ozzie Guillen and Bobby Cox took home Manager of the Year honors today. Both are very good choices for the award. Ozzie does bunt too much for my taste, but the team did very well in one-run games. If a manager's decisions matter, it's in those tight games where selecting the right pinch hitter, or relief pitcher, or strategy can make a big difference. I may not agree with everything, but Ozzie certainly pulled all the right strings this season.

I'm surprised Joe Torre didn't finish higher. This was his worst Yankees team in terms of personnel, and he still pulled off a division win. Wedge did a good job in Cleveland, but I'm not sure why the writers rate his performance that far ahead of Macha's, who basically did the same thing (coming back from a big deficit with a bunch of youngsters).

Cox, of course, took a bunch of youngsters, wove them into an injured lineup and emerged with a division crown. The surprise to me here is that Frank Robinson didn't do better. Given that the Nationals were not a very good team, keeping them in competition as long as Robby did was impressive.

Congratulations to Guillen and Cox on their well deserved awards!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:31 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
November 08, 2005
Wins Still Matter
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Congratulations to Bartolo Colon, the winner of the 2005 AL Cy Young Award.

Colon, who led the league with 21 wins, was listed first on 17 ballots and second on the other 11 for 118 points in voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He was the only pitcher named on every ballot, easily beating out New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera, who received 68 points.

Once again, the win total carries the day over the actual ability to keep runs off the board, the real job of a pitcher. I would have voted for Santana, easily the best pitcher in the AL this year in terms of fielding independent ERA.

I'm a bit surprised that the White Sox pitchers did so poorly in the voting. Buehrle had a great year and deserved many more third place votes. I'm also surprised that Kevin Millwood's ERA lead didn't garner him more votes. Lacking any other evidence, you'd think the ERA leader would deserve as much attention as the wins leader. It seems to me that the AL voters are in the John Kruk school of what stats are important in evaluating pitchers.

Update: As a commenter to this post points out, Jayson Stark makes a very good case for Santana. He winds up chiding the voters:

None of this is meant to disparage the man who won this award -- because we can think of 30 teams that would be thrilled to employ Colon. All we're saying is that it's way too easy to count up wins and cast a Cy Young vote.

Maybe that approach made sense four decades ago, the last time an Angels pitcher won himself a Cy. But it was also a lot harder to turn on a computer back then.
Posted by StatsGuru at 02:13 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)
Shaprio Sharpest
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Mark Shapiro of the Cleveland Indians earned the Executive of the Year Award from the Sporting News.

Shapiro received the award at a dinner at the annual general managers meetings. Shapiro edged Chicago GM Ken Williams in voting among team executives.

I must say I'm quite surprised by this. Ken Williams went the unconventional route and won the World Series. Schuerholz used his farm system to push Atlanta to another division series. I like the way Shapiro is building the Indians, but I just don't see him deserving the award this year. Does anyone know if the voting is like other awards, where you rank order candidates, or is it vote for one?

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:47 AM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
November 07, 2005
Rookies of the Year
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The winners of the Jackie Robinson Award were announced this afternoon with Ryan Howard and Huston Street taking home the prizes for top rookie in their respective leagues. I'm very pleased with Ryan winning the NL award over Willy Taveras. While Taveras collected 172 hits, 152 of them were singles. He walked just 25 times, meaning his .291 batting average represented a high percentage of his value. Howard drew more walks in almost 300 fewer at bats, and hit more homers (22) than Taveras had extra-base hits (20).

Street was also a good choice in the AL, although I thought Chacin, Gomes and Blanton should have finished in front of Cano. However, no one remembers who finished second. :-)

Street did everything well a pitcher should do well. He struck out lots of batters, didn't walk too many and only allowed three home runs. He held opponents to a .267 OBA and a .267 slugging percentage. He only threw one wild pitch all season.

Oakland earns back-to-back rookie of the year honors. It's the first time an American League team garnered consecutive rookie awards since 1986-1988, when Canseco, McGwire and Weiss took home the thropies. That was the start of four of five years in the post-season for the Athletics.

Posted by StatsGuru at 04:07 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
November 02, 2005
Silver and Gold
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Mike Labuda writes to offer that Carlos Lee's Silver slugger was worse than Derek Jeter's Gold Glove. He lays out his reasoning at Chisox Daily.

Posted by StatsGuru at 05:41 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Jeter's Golden Glove
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Derek Jeter won his second gold glove in a row. I guess the voters prize catching popups more than ground ball up the middle. It's tough for me to believe that a team with a below average DER has a great shortstop.

A big problem with the award is the voting structure. Rather than ranking players, as you do with the MVP and other major awards, the coaches and managers just vote for one. So the winner tends to be the player that gets a small plurality, instead of a consensus second choice.

Angels shortstop Orlando Cabrera actually had a higher fielding percentage than Jeter (.988 to .979) and made fewer errors (15 to 7), but Jeter recorded over 100 more assists (454 to 347) and that increased workload apparently swayed voters.

Well, Tejada had more assists than Jeter, more assists + putouts than Jeter, and more double plays turned. Does anyone have this year's zone ratings? I hope to calculate proabilistic ranges over the winter.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:06 AM | Comments (47) | TrackBack (1)
October 31, 2005
Rating the Rookies
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Tom Singer at MLB.com handicaps the NL Rookie of the Year. I'd go with Ryan Howard myself. His batting average wasn't as high as Francoeur's, but Ryan's OBA and slugging percentage was better. Ryan was also pretty even home and road, while Francoeur was greatly helped by his ballpark.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
October 25, 2005
Roberto Smoltz
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John Smoltz wins the Roberto Clemente Award. Congratulations to the Braves pitcher!

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 06, 2005
Comeback Kids
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Jason Giambi and Ken Griffey Jr. won Comeback Player of the Year Awards.

"It's unbelievable. I'm speechless," Giambi said. "I'm definitely honored. It's been a lot of hard work and a long road."

This is another example of steroid abuse being more important to the media than it is to the fans. The fans in general are willing to forgive this transgression.


Griffey's right hamstring, which had gruesomely torn off the bone one fateful day in August of 2004, was reattached by Reds team medical director Dr. Timothy Kremchek with three titanium screws.

Just a few years ago, such an injury probably would have ended Griffey's career. But he reported to Spring Training -- early, no less -- with a mission of putting together his first healthy season in five years.

"The only thing you can do is play as hard as you can on every team that you play for," he said on that day just before the start of the season. "That's not anything different than what I've done the last 16 years. I never set goals. I just play hard. Hopefully, more good things will happen than bad."

It was good to see Griffey's slugging percentage over .500 again. I thought if Griffey had a good year, the Reds would do well also, but the team's pitching was so poor, not even a rejuvenated Griffey could put them over the top.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:49 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)
October 01, 2005
Players of the Month
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Offensive player of the month is a very difficult call for September 2005. Randy Winn stands out; he's first in slugging percentage (70 PA min) and third in OBA. One amazing stat for Randy is that he had more extra-base hits than RBI. He knocked out twelve doubles, two triples and eleven home runs and only managed to knock in seventeen runs. It shows how poor the bottom of the Giants lineup performed.

This actually happens quite a bit with leadoff men. In 1929, Johnny Frederick of the Brooklyn Dodgers had 82 extra-base hits and only seventy-five RBI. That's the most EXBH with fewer RBI in the history of baseball. Frederick did score 127 runs that season.

Jimmy Rollins hit in every game he played in September, and led the majors with 29 runs scored. He earned an impressive .455 OBA, finally performing like a great leadoff hitter. Rollins also swiped 12 of 13 bases to raise his SB% to 87.2%, the best of his career.

Lance Berkman, Todd Helton, David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, Travis Hafner and Ryan Howard all had big months. But it comes down to Winn's superior numbers vs. Rollins scoring and his hit streak. In the end I have to go with Winn. He's turned out to be a great pickup for the Giants and the big reason they stayed in contention when it looked like their season was over. Congratulations to Randy Winn, the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month!

As with the batters, there are numerous great pitching performances in the month of September. Rick Helling had a hell of a month for the Brewers. Scott Kazmir may prove to be the pitcher that turns the Tampa Bay franchise around. Jose Contreras anchored the White Sox rotation and will probably start the opening game of the LDS for them. But the Big Milliliter, C.C. Sabathia gets the nod for Pitcher of the Month. He posted a minuscule ERA of 1.45 while striking out four times the batters he walked. He kept the ball in the park, allowing just two home runs in the month. The high strikeout rate led to just 28 hits going against him.

Si, Si, Sabathia!

Former Baseball Musings Players of the Month:

MonthBatterPitcher
August 2005David Wright, NY MetsNoah Lowry, SF Giants
Posted by StatsGuru at 08:36 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 30, 2005
Boston Chant
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David Oritz comes to the plate and the fans start chanting "MVP!" I don't know why they're cheering for A-Rod at that moment. Ortiz singles to center to drive in Damon and tie the game at 1.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 14, 2005
Rewarding the Comeback
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Brian Ettkin makes the case in favor of Giambi getting the Comeback Player of the Year Award.

If nothing else, Giambi is putting this award on the map. I remember trying to find the winner one year and none of the obvious internet sites listed the award. Usually, it gets the same treatment as Best Supporting Actor.

What no one is talking about is awarding Giambi the MVP. Consider that he's leading the league OBA. That alone should garner a player some MVP votes. Consider also that he's generating win shares at a faster rate than either Alex Rodriguez or Gary Sheffield. I don't think he deserves the award since he hasn't played well all season, but there's good reasons to put him in the top ten.

Posted by StatsGuru at 11:31 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
September 13, 2005

It strikes me that this is going to be the first year since 1989 that Barry Bonds gets no MVP votes. A remarkable run. When ESPN did a player of the 1990s show, I aruged that Barry Bonds should get the award based on his MVP shares. I believe it went to Mark McGwire instead.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
February 16, 2005
Retroactive MVP?
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Mike Greenwell thinks he should be the 1988 MVP.

"Where's my MVP?" Greenwell told the Fort Myers News-Press. "(Canseco's) an admitted steroid user. I was clean. If they're going to start putting asterisks by things, let's put one by the MVP."

Mike finished second to Jose in the voting in 1988. Of course, Kirby Puckett was 2nd in win shares that year (Greenwell wasn't even first on his team; Boggs beat him 31 to 30), so maybe we should just revote and give it to the Teddy Bear.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:03 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
February 04, 2005
Bloggie Finalist
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Congratulations to The Soxaholix, who has been nominated for two blog awards! (Warning, language not approved by the FCC if you follow the link.)

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
January 09, 2005
Top Honors
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Congratulations to Brian Gunn and Rich Lederer! Their column on Jim Edmonds (which appeared on the now defunct Redbird Nation) was picked as one of the top 10 sports columns of 2004 by The Daily Fix of the Wall Street Journal. It was the only blog entry so honored. Great work guys (and we still miss you, Brian).

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 29, 2004
Hoffman Honored
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Congratulations to Trevor Hoffman, this year's winner of the Hutch Award.

Hoffman, the 40th winner of the Hutch Award, was recognized for returning last season and recording 41 saves after missing almost all of the 2003 season following two rounds of shoulder surgery as well as his involvement in the community.

Hoffman didn't miss a beat as he struck out nearly a batter an inning and was stingier than usual in issuing walks. He's just 7 saves away from 400 and will be just the third pitcher to reach that plateau. With two good seasons, he'll set the all-time save mark.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
December 12, 2004
Spink for Ink
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Peter Gammons has won the annual Spink award for

meritorious contributions to baseball writing.

One of my great pleasures in my years at Harvard was reading the Peter Gammons Sunday column in the globe. I consider myself lucky to have worked with Peter for 10 years at ESPN, and have him mention my work a number of times in his columns. He's a good colleague and a better friend. Congratulations, Peter!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
November 23, 2004
Tip of the Hat
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Bill Young writes that the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame is looking for votes for their 2004 Tip O'Neill Award. You can see the candidates and a link for voting here.


The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum is asking the public to voice their opinions through their website, www.baseballhalloffame.ca, which will help determine the recipient, awarded annually to the Canadian player judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to the highest ideals of the game of baseball. 2003 NL Cy Young winner Eric Gagné ran away with his second consecutive Tip last year (he shared the 2002 award with Larry Walker).

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:16 PM | TrackBack (0)
November 18, 2004
Cape Fame
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The Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame had its induction ceremony on Saturday. Will Clark and Eric Milton were among the inductees.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Slain Player Remembered
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Mark Teahen wins the first annual MLB.com Dernell Stenson AFL Sportsmanship Award. The award is in memory of Dernell Stenson, who was killed during a car-jacking last year while playing in the Arizona Fall League. Congratulations to Mark. It's a nice way to remember Dernell. (You can read about the Stenson case in the crime archive.)

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 16, 2004
Most Vladuable Player
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Congratulations to Vlad Guerrero who won the AL Most Valuable Player award today.


Guerrero, who batted .337 with 39 home runs and 126 runs batted in and led the league in runs scored (124) and total bases (366), was a vital factor in the Angels' winning the AL West by hitting .371 with 10 home runs and 23 RBI in September.

It just goes to show that recent performance stays with voters. If Vlad had had his best month in April, gotten the Angels out to a big lead so they could coast the rest of the way he might very well have not won the award. After all, that's basically what Sheffield accomplished in June, as the Yankees went 19-7 in his best month.

Nonetheless, it's a good selection. Vlad was dangerous both at home and on the road, putting up nearly identical OBAs and slugging percentages. He was consistent throughout the year, only having his BA dip below .300 in July (.298). If only the Expos could have held on to the Impaler, the new Washington team would have a fantastic draw. Instead, Arte Moreno made one of the most cost effective free agent signings of all time.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:23 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)
November 15, 2004
Rolling a 7
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Congratulations to Barry Bonds who won his 7th NL MVP award today. It was an easy win for Barry as he out pointed Adrian Beltre 407-311.

Bonds had 53 win shares this season, making him responsible for 17 of the Giants 91 wins, or nearly 1/5 of the team's total. Just how amazing is this? If you're lucky, a great player can make a five win difference in a team. That's replacing a below-average to average player. But Bonds Bonds is 8 wins better than Hideki Matsui, the AL left fielder with the most win shares (29)! If this were high school, Bonds would be the student who gets 100 on his chemistry test while the rest of the class gets 70's.

Until Barry Bonds, no one won more than 3 MVPs. There's a good reason for this. To be the most valuable player, an athlete should be at the top of his game. There is usually a very short window in which this happens, usually in a hitters late 20's. Bonds having the best part of his career at the end has of course drawn suspicions of steroid use. Whatever he's doing to stay in shape, he's produced the best four year run in the history of baseball.

He also could have easily won eight awards. In 1991, Bonds accumulated 10 more win shares than the winner, Terry Pendleton. He dominated the game when he was young, and he continues to dominate the game at age 40. If he can clear himself of the steroid suspicisions, he's staked his claim as the greatest hitter ever.

Update: You can see the complete voting here. It's impressive that Mark Lorretta finished fairly high, but it's as Brian Gunn commented below, Bobby Abreu did not draw much attention. The writers need to wake up to how good a player Bobby is.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:00 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (1)
November 11, 2004
Smooth Win
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Johan Santana capped off a great season today with the AL Cy Young Award. In an award I thought might be close between Santana and Schilling, Santana took all the first place votes. As good as Schilling was, Johan's superior ERA and K numbers put him over the top. Congratulations, Johan!

These two pitchers are much closer than the award voting indicates. Schilling had better walk numbers, and both allowed about the same number of HR. However, win shares gives a clear advantage to Santana, 27 to 22. Could it be that AL voters are more sophisticated than their NL counterparts?

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:22 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
November 10, 2004
Unexpected Performance Award
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Buck Showalter and Bobby Cox have each won the covetted Manager of the Year award. This award usually goes to the manager whose team exceeded pre-season expectations, and both Texas and Atlanta certainly did that. Cox showed that he did not need a stellar pitching staff to carry Atlanta to victory. In a season where Atlanta could easily have fallen apart, Cox rode an improved offense to another division title.

Buck Showalter has always been good at putting his players into situations where they will succeed. He did that with both his batters and pitchers this year as Texas moved out of the AL West cellar and into contention for the division. His handling of the chair throwing incident in Oakland was poor, but the voters seemed to ignore that in the voting. Kudos also to the general managers of both teams who provided the personnel to pull off these seasons.

The voters made two good choices here. It was nice to see Eric Wedge gets a few votes as well. I suspect he'll win this when Cleveland is back on top.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:05 PM | TrackBack (0)
November 09, 2004
Wins Over Performance
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Congratulations to Roger Clemens on winning his 7th Cy Young Award, and his first in the National League. It certainly was the year of the old pitcher in the NL, as Clemens beat out Randy Johnson for the award. Once again, the voters show they are more interested in wins than actual pitching performance. Johnson was ahead of Clemens in K per 9 and BB per 9, and just slightly behind in HR per 9 (and both were extremely good in that category). If Randy Johnson were on a decent offensive team, he would have won going away.

Wins are a team statistic that is applied to players. No pitcher gets a win in isolation. Sometimes the wins are mostly attributable to a pitcher (a 1-0 shutout, for example), but there are always fielders doing their job to back him up, and batters who need to put some runs on the board for a victory. I've been hoping for years that Cy Young voters would realize the difference between wins and ability, but it hasn't happened yet. In my opinion, wins should act as a tie breaker; given two hurlers that have very similar seasons, use the wins as a tie breaker. But in this case, Johnson had the superior season and should be recognized for that.

Amazingly to me, Jake Peavy did not get a single vote. You might think that the league leader in ERA would merit a third place point from the SD voters at least. I guess it was a combination of too few innings and playing in a good park for pitchers.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:07 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (1)
November 08, 2004
Rookie of the Year
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It's Jason Bay and Bobby Crosby taking home the BBWA Awards for NL and AL Rookie of the Year. This differs from the IBWA, which awarded the NL Debut of the Year to Greene. However, I liked both Crosby and Bay as my #1 picks. I liked Bay's power vs. Crosby's defense.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:46 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Pirate Rookies
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I didn't realize that the Pittsburgh Pirates have never had a rookie of the year award winner. Jason Bay may change that today. Amazingly, the view in San Diego is that Bay will beat out Greene.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)
November 02, 2004
Gold Fingers
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The AL Gold Glove winners were announced today. Derek Jeter won at shortstop. The amazing thing is that Jeter was a good candidate. He amassed 7.2 fielding win shares, tied for 3rd in the AL.

The Gold Glove voting system stinks, by the way. I believe the managers and coaches vote for their top choice only, and whoever gets a plurality wins. They really need to do a 1-2-3 system, as the writers do for their awards.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
October 29, 2004
Internet Baseball Writers Awards
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Christian Ruzich has the results of the first annual Internet Baseball Writers Association (IBWA) awards. My ballot can be found in the extended entry below.

(A more readable version of the results can be found here.)

First off, I was the person who voted for Ryan Drese. I liked Drese's performance all year. He's one of the people who helped improve Texas greatly. It was purely a I like the guy, and I'm going to see he gets some recognition vote.

I disagree with the AL Player of the year voting in that the Yankees trio of Sheffield, Matsui and A-Rod did not get the votes they deserved. They were in the top 3 of win shares most of the year. I don't have a problem with Vlad winning; he had a great season. But I think voters in general should have ranked the three New Yorkers higher.

I was great to see Randy Johnson win the NL Pitcher of the year. This group of writers recognizes that wins don't always equate to pitching excellence. And it also came very close to be a unanimous 1-2 for Santana and Schilling in the AL.

I'm interested in seeing how this voting compares to the BBWA next week. I have a feeling it may disagree in the NL Cy Young race, but maybe the ink and paper writers will suprise us.

Read More ?


Posted by StatsGuru at 03:03 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
February 06, 2004
Primeys
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I just received the following letter:


This is to notify you that you have been selected as a Baseball Primer Primey Award Finalist. The Primey Awards are the awards that recognize the best baseball content on the Internet, and voting for the winners has now begun.

You have been nominated for:

Best Baseball site - Weblog: Baseball Musings
Best Baseball Research Project: "A Probabalistic Model of Range"

The ballot is located at:

http://www.baseballprimer.com/articles/danwerr_2004-02-05_0.shtml

Please feel free to vote and to link to the ballot to make sure you have the support of your readers as well.

We take these awards very seriously and hope you do too.


That was a nice surprise. There are lots of other categories to vote on as well, all with links to interesting articles and posts. Go vote for your favorites!

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 18, 2003
News Roundup
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Brian Gunn at Redbird Nation has a good roundup of MVP opinions and other news here.

Posted by StatsGuru at 07:50 PM | TrackBack (0)
NL MVP Voting
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Here's the voting for the NL MVP. The NL voters had a much clearer sense of value than the AL voters did. One through four, there's deep agreement among the writers who cast ballots.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:59 PM | TrackBack (0)
High Yield Bonds
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Barry Bonds won his 6th Most Valuable player award today. I'm waiting to see the voting and the articles, but it was called a landslide.

Update: Here's the article from MLB.com. Bonds received 28 first place votes out of 32. He's now won twice as many MVP's as anyone else, and there were probably a couple of more years he should have won and didn't. Pujols was 2nd, Sheffield 3rd.

Even though I thought Pujols should have won, I can't complain about this. Bonds is the greatest hitter I've ever seen, and to still be the best hitter at his age is truly amazing. Congratulations to Barry Bonds on this remarkable achievement.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:03 PM | TrackBack (0)
Playing Time vs. Better Stats
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The NL MVP will be announced in a few minutes, and I wanted to come down on the side of Albert Pujols. Bonds has better averages. On any given day when both are on the field, Bonds is the more valuable player. But Bonds can't play a full season anymore and Albert can. That makes the difference to me in this year's vote. Both are great, Bonds is better, but Albert contributes every day.

Posted by StatsGuru at 01:42 PM | TrackBack (0)
Deserved MVP
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I'm really getting tired of arguments about A-Rod deserving the MVP. This Jayson Stark article trys to make the case that a player on a losing team doesn't deserve the MVP award:


Of course it does. It tells us most of those voters also asked themselves our second question: Where would those teams have finished without those players?

If you ask that question about Alex Rodriguez, you know the answer. You know his team would have finished in exactly the same place without him as with him.

Last.


Of course, last is a relative term. If the Rangers had been in any other division in baseball, they would not have finished last. They did not have the worst record in the American League. Three teams had worse records. So without A-Rod, the Rangers would have been more like the Devil Rays than like the Angels, and which team would you rather watch?

What I really don't like about Jayson's argument is that if Texas had a good pitching staff, he would be voting for A-Rod. If Texas had the rotation of the A's or the Mariners or the Yankees, they would have contended in the West, and Stark would have no problem voting for A-Rod, even if his stats were exactly the same!

Stark doesn't say it directly, but he wants clutch players to win the MVP award:


OK, here's a little game for you. These are the stats of two top-five finishers in the MVP race after July 1. Which is which?


Player A: 27 HR, 67 RBI, 12 doubles, 4 triples, .642 slugging pct. Player B: 27 HR, 65 RBI, 17 doubles, 2 triples, .661 slugging pct.

Before we reveal the names, which would you vote for if we told you Player A's team was already 21 games out of first place -- and 15½ out of the wild card -- when that stretch began, while Player B's team was only 3½ of first and hanging onto the wild-card lead by 1½?

Well, Player A was Alex Rodriguez. Player B was Boston's David Ortiz. We're not suggesting that Ortiz is a better player than A-Rod, or that he's a clear-cut MVP, or that you ought to write in his name in your local presidential primary.

We're just suggesting there were players other than A-Rod who made a significant impact down the stretch on not just their own numbers, but on the pennant races. And that's what MVP's do.


"Impact down the stretch." So a guy who makes a significant impact April-June, puts his team up 20 games so they can coast can't win the MVP? I seem to remember a Tiger winning the MVP in 1984. All that team had to do down the stretch that year was show up.

The reason players on last place teams, or team with losing records seldom win an MVP is that bad teams seldom have great players. The failure of the Rangers to surround A-Rod with enough talent should not reflect badly on him. He was a deserving MVP candidate.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:52 AM | TrackBack (0)
November 17, 2003
MVP Voting
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I have the complete MVP voting here. It's nice to see I was right about David Ortiz; people voted for him at the top or hardly at all. A-Rod was the clear choice in the top four of voting; he's the only player to recieve 20 votes in the top four positions, so everyone agreed he had high MVP standing. That carried the day for him. And even under a 10-9-8.. points scheme A-Rod still would have won.

Update: The above voting info had Carlos Lee's votes wrong. It has been corrected as of Tuesday morning.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:47 PM | TrackBack (0)
Finally!
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Alex Rodriguez won the AL MVP award today, after a number of deserving years in which he didn't win the award. I'm waiting to see a full tally of the vote. Rodriguez received six first place votes, more than any other candidate. Carlos Delgado was 2nd and received five first place votes, the same as Jorge Posada. It should be noted that win shares had Rodriguez and Delgado tied for first in the AL; my guess is that the tie-break was Alex playing a tougher defensive position.

Update: The above link now has a more a detailed (but not complete) list of the voting. Some interesting notes:


  • It's a good thing there is a bonus for first place votes. Only 11 voters had A-Rod first or second. Thirteen had Delgado first or second.

  • David Ortiz is an interesting case. He had more 1st, 2nd and 3rd place votes than Stewart, but Stewart had a higher point total. I guess you either voted for Ortiz high or not at all.

  • Everyone seemed to have his own idea who should be MVP. There was not consensus winner, and looking at the small sample of the vote, there wasn't even a clear consensus 2nd choice.


I can't wait to get a hold of the full vote to see what else we can glean from it.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:05 PM | TrackBack (0)
MVP Monday
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The AL MVP will be announced today. It's going to be a close vote today, as it has been reported that 10 different players have received first place votes. The voting system used by the baseball writers for their awards is a Borda count, which has been shown to be the fairest system of voting available. Borda counts are extremely good at picking the consensus favorite when there are multiple candidates. In cases like this year, you get a consensus 2nd choice, rather than a winner with a low percentage plurality. Based on that, I think A-Rod is going to win (finally). While you can make any number of arguments against him being #1 (he didn't play for a winner, blah, blah blah), there is not excuse for his not being in the top two. We'll see for sure this afternoon, but a long time injustice may finally be rectified.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:56 AM | TrackBack (0)
November 13, 2003
Remembering Dernell Stenson
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Players, coaches and managers are trying to create a Dernell Stenson award to be given to a player in the Arizona Fall League each year.


On the field during this Fall League season, Stenson was among the league leaders in batting average, so one possibility would be to give the Dernell Stenson Award to the AFL batting champion each year. It would serve as a wonderful testament to what Stenson accomplished on the field, and what direction his career was heading.

But after talking to his teammates, and his AFL manager Rick Burleson, that didn't sound like enough. As much of a talent as Stenson was on the field, his impact off the field is what truly needs to be remembered.

"The Dernell Stenson Sportsmanship Award, going to someone who plays hard every day, who does his job without complaint," Burleson said. "That tells more about the individual Dernell was than a batting title award. You're emulating a guy like Dernell, a soft-spoken, hard-nosed player who played the game the way it's supposed to be played."

Reds pitching prospect Joe Valentine echoed those sentiments. He played with Stenson for only a short amount of time, but that time has left an indelible mark on Valentine.

"He was always early and the last to leave," Valentine said. "He played the game the way it was meant to be played. That's the mark he's left on me and probably everybody he's ever played with. It definitely would be a fitting as a tribute to him."


Stenson seems to be quite loved by his fellow players. I think the sportsmanship award would indeed be a fitting memorial.

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:50 PM | TrackBack (0)
Gagne's Day
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Eric Gagne has won the Cy Young award in a landslide. He garnered 28 of the 32 first place votes. Interestingly, it looks like two voters totally left him off the ballot. I guess they didn't feel that a closer should be able to win the award. It's also good to see Ortiz finish so far back; seems that wins (in the NL at least) are counting less than a good ERA these days.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:01 PM | TrackBack (0)
NL Cy Young
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Baseball will award the NL Cy Young trophy later today. It's a tough choice for voters, with Gagne, Schmidt and Prior all deserving of the award. Gagne earned 25 wins shares, while Schmidt, Prior and Livan Hernandez all earned 22. No one talks about Livan for Cy Young, probably due to his 3.20 ERA and the fact that he didn't pitch well down the stretch.

I actually like Gagne for the award this year. Dennis Eckersley won the award in 1992 (and it wasn't Eck's best year) and Gagne's 2003 is better than Eck's 1992. One thing Eck had working for him that year is that it was difficult to pick a clear winner from the starters. The guys with great ERA's didn't win 20 games, and the guys who won 20 games didn't have great ERAs. The same thing may work for Gagne this year. Russ Ortiz is the only 20 game winner, but he's not in the top 10 in ERA. The best win total among the leaders in ERA is 18. Gagne deserves the award, and while I'm not crazy about a reliever getting it, he had an amazing season. We'll see this afternoon if the voters agree.

Posted by StatsGuru at 09:42 AM | TrackBack (0)
November 12, 2003
Managers of the Year
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The votes are in, and Pena and McKeon win in landslides. As I wrote earlier, I thought they were good candidates, but I don't think they were landslide candidates. I wonder who gave Trammell the one third place vote? That's probably the most outrageous thing on any ballot.

I'm surprised that Dusty Baker didn't get more first place votes, although he was the consensus 2nd choice. As I wrote before, I thought the Cubs move from poor to playoffs was just as impressive as the Marlins.

Nonetheless, congrats to Tony Pena and Jack McKeon. It was a great debut year for the Royals skipper, and a nice honor for the veteran of the field, dugout and front office. Good luck next year!

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:35 PM | TrackBack (0)
Manager of the Year
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This always reminds me of the old Bill Murray Academy Awards predictions for best supporting actor and actress: Who really cares? :-) It really seems to be the award to the manager whose team exceeded expectations the most, and the odds on favorites are Jack McKeon and Tony Pena. And fine choices they are. But other candidates should not be dismissed lightly.

I actually like Ron Gardenhire of the Twins. He lost David Ortiz and Eric Milton and still managed to win a division. Joe Torre had the worst Yankees team of his tenure in terms of depth, had injuries to Jeter, Williams, Giambi and Johnson to deal with, no bullpen, and still managed to guide the team to the most wins in the majors.

In the NL, Bobby Cox, like Torre, had probably the worst team he's had his the Braves started their run in 1991. But the offense was brilliant, and the pitching staff wasn't as bad as expected. You have to give Bobby a lot of credit for that. Dusty Baker's transformation of the Cubs into winners is every bit as impressive and Jack McKeon's transformation of the Marlins. And Frank Robinson once again did a terrific job without a lot of support.

I think the two favorites will win by big margins, but I don't believe those margins are deserved.

Posted by StatsGuru at 10:39 AM | TrackBack (0)
November 11, 2003
Holiday for Halladay
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Roy Halladay won the AL Cy Young award today. He won the award easily, garnering 26 of the 28 first place votes. It's interesting that he won by such a wide margin; Hudson, Loaiza and Halladay all earned 23 win shares and Hudson and Loaiza had better ERAs. It seems the win column is still an important component in the voters minds. I would have thought the vote would have been closer, but he is a deserving winner.

Posted by StatsGuru at 03:14 PM | TrackBack (0)
November 10, 2003
Rookies Of the Year
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Angel Berroa and Dontrelle Willis each took home Rookie of the Year honors today.

Berroa received 12 first place votes and Matsui received 10, the final score being Berroa 88, Matsui 84. So much for an East Coast bias in the voting. Since 1996, a period in which the Yankees have gone to the playoffs every year, the World Series six times and won four of them, they have won two major awards (ROY, Cy Young, MVP); Jeter's ROY in 1996 and Clemens' Cy Young in 2001. Matsui had more win shares than Berrora; I assume some voters got tired of giving the award to a Japanese verteran every year.

Webb was a better pitcher than Willis this year, although Willis certainly captured the imagination of the fans and was a big part of the Florida drive to the pennant. My feeling is that in the long run, I'd rather have Webb on my team.

Posted by StatsGuru at 02:55 PM | TrackBack (0)
Awards Week
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It's awards week in Major League Baseball. Rookie of the Year is due out today. You can see who the experts at ESPN would have chosen here. I like Webb in the NL, Matsui in the AL.

Posted by StatsGuru at 12:36 PM | TrackBack (0)
September 13, 2003
NL Cy Young
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Idiots Write About Sports think Gary Sheffield should win the Cy Young award, and they make a convincing argument!

Posted by StatsGuru at 08:08 AM | TrackBack (0)