See either my website, or http://www.redsox2000.com, to see why Gordon Edes is wrong.

I'm going over to Boston.com to read the article now. If all of this is the case, then why was Ortiz voted as the Hank Aaron winner, and Most Outstanding Player in the AL by both players, coaches, and managers?

I'll have to check that out though.

ARod beat out Ortiz in cumulative Net Runs Above Average. I don't have the spreadsheet on me to give you the figures, because I'm in computer programming class at the moment :)

Digital Derek,

Because that vote was a popularity contest, and A-Rod isn't a popular guy.

Net Runs Above Average per Games Played

NRAA measures offensive and defensive run value above average in rate stat form. Per GP is the cumulative form.

ARod 05': 57.96
Ortiz 05': 55.79
Hafner 05': 50.70

ARod is the winner. I have to stick by my own stat :)

Here's my question: Why, after last week's utterly stupid Cy Young voting, do any of us care anymore? I mean, seriously. Why do the opinions of 28 "professional baseball writers" matter so much? We could have a vote of the 28 most prolific commenters on Baseball Musings and proclaim an MVP that way. We're all just as qualified and we all probably watch just as many, if not more, games as the writers voting today.

How can one guy who covers the Reds all season and never sees the Yankees or the Red Sox play know who the MVP is? It's just plain stupid.

Whenever either A-rod or Ortiz came to the plate in crucial situations who would receive the loudest cheers from the fans? Not A-rod....!

Ben,

People who watch the Reds don't vote for AL MVP. Voting is done by two beat writers for each team in the league.

Though I don't know what NRAA actually measures, I'm betting it falls victim to the same pitfalls as OPS and nearly every other stat in this discussion. OVERALL, ARod had a better year. If you put both him and Ortiz at the plate, you were more likely to see ARod's plate appearance have a better result.

But, Win Probability Added shows that Ortiz gave his team more of a chance to win overall. He actually won more games than ARod, and it's not even close.

Usually, you could just look at OPS to determine who had the best year. With enough of a sample size, presumably ARod would have begun to get more hits in higher-importance settings, and Ortiz would get less (regression to the mean). Unless, Ortiz is just more "clutch" than ARod. Who knows.

Anyways there's a lot of statistics out there, and most of them have ARod higher. Except the one that measures how much a player helps his team win.

"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."

Talk about a cherry picking stat that means nothing. 3 of those homers and 10 of those RBIs for Arod came against the Angels in 1 game?!?

David:
Oh ok. So it's done by AL voters. I get it. I didn't know that. Still, my point remains. I think these awards are way overrated.

Mike -- what pitfalls are you talking about?

Win Probability Added, however, suffers from a fatal flaw. It can offer big rewards, but it's tough for a batter to get a big negative.

Basically, if the Red Sox are down two runs in the bottom of the ninth, their probability of winning the game is very low. So, if Ortiz hits a three-run homer, he gets a huge reward. But if he makes an out, he doesn't get much of a penalty.

If A-Rod hits the same three run homer in the first inning, he gets much less of a reward, even if that's the game winning hit. Same result, different rewards.

In general, there is little cost to making an out in that system, since there are no opportunities where making an out takes your team from certain victory to certain defeat.

Win shares, on the other hand, does incorporate clutch hitting via the runs created formula. That's why Sheffield and A-Rod are much closer in that stat than their overall batting stats would indicate. Even with that clutch adjustment, A-Rod beats Ortiz.

Sorry - I mean the pitfall of being a mean or average statistic in a sport where some situations are more crucial than others. Again, given enough sample size, I think ARod and Ortiz' stats in "clutch" or high leverage situations would regress towards their mean performance stats... in which case, ARod's mean stats are better and his WPA would then be better. But that's not the case; we either don't have a large enough sample since their mean stats are so different than their high-leverage stats... or Ortiz is just clutch and ARod chokes.

David, I'm not a fan of Win Shares at all. The entire basis of it - marginal runs, or whatever, based on .5 and 1.5 the league average, seems relatively arbitrary. A few years ago, it might have been unique in its measurement of offense and defense, and how it turned it into a number for each player that was a "ratio" unit - i.e. 7 win shares is twice as good as 3.5. I think nowadays we have much better ideas available. I don't know enough about Win Shares to really criticize it fully, though, so that's all I can say.

For WPA though, ARod gets less reward for his 3-run HR in the first inning because it's worth less! What if the team he was playing scored 10 runs in the next inning? What if his own team batted around that same inning? The uncertainty of the future is what makes those runs worth less in the 1st inning. This is similar, I believe, to why bunting to "manufacture" a run in the first inning is stupid and disadvantageous. You have no idea how much that run will impact the game in the first inning. BUT, in later innings, you have much more of a clue, so that run becomes a lot more important and it might, at some point, become statistically correct to do it.

If anything, ARod should love the lack of penalty offered by WPA since his close-and-late stats are worse. But that's sort of unrelated to this argument, I think. Both Ortiz and ARod come to bat in high leverage situations with the opportunity to get a big WPA gain if they get a big hit, and suffer a small WPA loss if they make an out. The difference is, Ortiz gets more of these hits than ARod.

Ortiz' 9th inning 3-run HR wins the game with certainty the moment it's hit. ARod's HR, while it may be provide the eventual winning run(s), doesn't win the game with certainty. It gives an advantage to his team that is far less than the "advantage" given by ending the game with a walkoff.

Maybe we differ in philosophy here. I can certainly say that I'm biased, and if the names were reversed and Ortiz had better overall stats, worse close-and-late numbers, I'd probably argue for him still winning the MVP due to being better "overall". But since I began examining baseball stats, I have found I appreciate the theory behind WPA more than any other stat.

It might not be the perfect predictive statistic, because luck has a lot to do with the at-bat situations a player steps into. But it is about the best descriptive statistic I can imagine. It tells what happened better than anything else... in my opinion.

"Here's my question: Why, after last week's utterly stupid Cy Young voting, do any of us care anymore? I mean, seriously."

Hear, hear, Ben! Although, I suppose it can be fun to feel righteously indignant. I relished my astonished anger last year when Jayson Stark went public with his Shannon Stewart MVP vote.

Re: the "voters." I've checked this out, & think we should
be able to know. More & more papers aren't allowing
their writers to vote on baseball awards. I saw a writer's
statement that "2 writers from each AL city" cast votes.
This, apparently, is not even true. Buck Martinez said on
his radio show on Nov. 8 that Andruw Jones might be
hurt by the fact that the Atlanta Journal Constitution does
not allow its writers to vote, and their votes have been
re-assigned to Minnesota & Philadelphia. Peter Schmuck,
Pres. of the BBWAA is not allowed to vote. He writes for
the Baltimore Sun, which doesn't allow it. If at one time
there were in fact 2 writers on each team's beat
voting, that would be nice. But, even though someone
from BBWAA makes a general statement that it's 2
writers from each city, it's not clear that's even true.
Writers have greatly raised their profiles by casting
votes that openly diverted from the rules, without any
consequence. I've tried to find out who these voters
are, and there's no reason we shouldn't know, cer-
tainly after the fact. Unless this group is trying to hide
something.

A valid criticism Mike; I only questioned due to my detesting of OPS, and the fact that NRAA was mentioned in the same sentence as that stat :)

James Click situational hitting study was excellent at BP, giving Ortiz a sizeable lead over ARod. Is that enough to push his total value over ARod's? Not so sure.

Good point here, Mike:
"It might not be the perfect predictive statistic, because luck has a lot to do with the at-bat situations a player steps into. But it is about the best descriptive statistic I can imagine."

Right. Predictive statistics tell you who might be more talented, which gives you a better idea about who is more likely to be good in the future. Descriptive statistics, however, are what an award like MVP should be based upon--- "who did more to help his team win" rather than "who is a more talented ballplayer."

A-Rod won the MVP award.

More and more hot air,
Jerry Rabinowitz

howard mvp i dont think so 181 stikeouts in 581 at bats. this guy stikes out 31% of the time, pujols 50 stikeouts in 535 at bats 9% of time. who would you rather have at the plate. cardinals world champs? not without pujols; they wouldn't have even made the playoffs! key word "MOST VALUABLE PLAYER' take nothing away from howard he had a great season, but his team was sitting at home watching the post season games. based on pujols missing about 14 games he would have had around 50 more at bats, which based on hr per at bats he would have had about 5 more. his rbis would have been around the same as howards too. the bottom line is i dont care if you bat .400 with 200 rbis and 90 hrs if your team cant make it to the big show then you must not be the MVP. congrats to a class act, i am talking about you mr. pujols you are an mvp in more than just one way. as to you mr. howard what a great season and we wish you the best of luck. sincerly, royce michaels lafayette graduate 1984