By this point in a season, nothing is easier to predict than a race for the Most Valuable Player award, which goes not to the best player but to the best player who fulfills a variety of arbitrary criteria. Once you admit that the award is what it actually is, rather than what you think it should be, everything falls right into line.
To see how this works, just look at the American League this year. It looks at first to be a race, since no one in the league is having such a great season that they’ll win by acclamation, and you can make a case for nearly a dozen players. The only ones in real contention, though, are Chicago’s Carlos Quentin, who ranks fourth in the league in OPS, and Minnesota’s Justin Morneau, a former MVP and touted RBI man, with Texas’s Josh Hamilton and Los Angeles’s Francisco Rodriguez just barely in there. No one else has a prayer.
...All of this leaves us with Morneau and Quentin, who rank second and third in the league in RBI and play corner positions indifferently for two teams locked in a tight playoff race. There are better hitters; there are better hitters at more difficult positions; there are better hitters at more difficult positions for teams in pennant races. There are, in other words, better players. What any of that has to do with the actual MVP award — which might as well be engraved with the name of whichever one of these two plays for the team that ends up winning the American League Central — is a mystery.
Repoz
Posted: August 13, 2008 at 09:56 AM |
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That still doesn't answer the question.
I think you're confusing value and clutch. A game-winning homerun in September to take the division lead is much more clutch than a game-winning homerun on Opening Day. I agree completely that the two games are equally important, but in terms of clutch, there's a big difference.
Yep, I parsed your question incorrectly. Anyhow, I think some people define a clutch situation as one that's both important and perceptibly important--as your September example would be. I'd define it as being "merely" important, irrespective of how it feels to fan, observer, and player. In other words, the fact that the White Sox took two of three from the Twins in early May this season might not have felt important at the time (most of us were probably still expecting the Indians and Tigers to be the teams vying for the AL Central title), but it damn well may turn out to be. It was a clutch series, never mind how it was perceived at the time.
In an absolute sense, yes. In a relative sense, no - because you have less time to recover from a loss in September than you do from a loss in April. And that's the nub of the problem.
Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. I don't understand what could be relative about the simple fact that wins and losses count the same regardless of the calendar. If you want to bring specific opponent into it, then obviously that's true: it means more to the Dodgers to beat the D-backs than it does for them to beat the Nationals. But otherwise, no.
There are 162 games. You win 86 of the first 155. Your true talent is approximately that (for instance). Over the course of the season you won five in a row, you lost five in a row - the normal fluctuations of a season. In the last 7 games you go 31-6, well below your true talent level. You finish one game back because there weren't any game left to even that out. The normal fluctuations of a season geenrally even out. One Sept arrives they don't have that time if you perform poorly. What you did is what you did, but once you have already gotten through 155 games, and are in front, the season is then just 7 game long.
If you go 86-69 in 155 games, it doesn't matter whether those are the first 155 games or the last 155 games, or a non-continuous stretch of games with the other 7 games interspersed among them.
And if you'd won 88 of the first 155, then you win the division despite that 1-6 finish. Regular-season games are regular-season games are regular-season games.
EDIT: Or, what DMN said.
I think he probably should be given a bit more due that the by-the-numbers approach suggests. Youkilis' versatility has allowed the Red Sox to use Sean Casey, who's hit very well this year, rather than Alex Cora whenever Mike Lowell has been out of the lineup. He's a bit more valuable than his numbers in a way that Chone Figgins has always been more valuable than his numbers. He's reponsible for a situation where his team has a good backup at one extra position.
Obviously, in the standings, they're all the same. I think we can all agree on this.
Now, in terms of their effects on the probability of winning a pennant, they're highly variable. When one considers the big picture, they even out. However, in the midst of a pennant race, the marginal effect of winning a one-game playoff at the end of the season is enormous. The marginal effect on a team's playoff chances of winning a game in April are small. At the time of the game, one has to assume that the probability the race will be decided by a single game is fairly small, so the game is of relatively little importance. However, by late September, for most teams, all games have zero or nearly zero impact on their chances of winning a pennant. Most teams will have either clinched or been eliminated by then. On average, September games are no more important than April games. Furthermore, what's really important at the end of the season is not how much the team's instantaneous playoff probability changed as a result of each game (e.g. if they went from a 10% chance of making the playoffs on April 10 to a 12% chance of April 12), but whether they made the playoffs or didn't. Even though the team's chance it will make the playoffs can fluctuate more in September, that doesn't make the games in September more important than the ones before. I don't see any good reason to count some games more than others.
Now, that doesn't mean I think it's irrational to manage a team differently in different parts of the season. If a manager sticks with a player in April or May hoping to get him back on track, that has major potential rewards on the season. If he does that in September, he's taking a risk without nearly as much possible reward. Similarly, risking overusing a pitcher can make sense late in the season, when the leverage of the games is higher, than it does early in the season. There are some situations in which the "more time to even out" rationale should be considered in terms of team management strategy. I don't think it should be considered in terms of evaluation of a player's contributions.
If one person helps an old lady across the street while the second person pushed an old lady into traffic and then rescues her, do we call the second person a hero? After all, the second person performed well at the highest leverage situation, where help for the old woman was by far the most important.
Let's say Konerko goes nuts in September and hits 350/500/700 and the White Sox pull out the division title by 2 games. Why should he get extra credit? His inferior play would be one of the reasons that the White Sox were in the position where they had a pennant race in September to begin with. Giving Konerko extra credit is rewarding him for his earlier, inferior play.
I suspect the current odds are: Hamilton, Quentin, Youkilis, K-Rod, Mauer, Mourneau. Wild ass guess, obviously.
Odds for deserving or winning? Morneau has to be ahead of Mauer in odds for winning, based on all articles I've seen from the type of people who are allowed to vote.
It's the same mentality that says runs batted in are more important than runs scored. Doing things when everyone's watching, when the situation is resolving itself seems more important than setting the situation up, until you really think about it carefully.
This is an argument (1) that quality of opponent should be factored into any evaluation of a player's performance, and (2) that the award should only go to players in a playoff race. I think I agree with (1), and (2) is a matter of definition/personal taste so I won't argue with you about it.
None of the above, however, is an argument for choosing the player who performed better in September over the guy who performed better in May, if they're on the same team and played in the same games. The games in May counted just as much as the games in September.
Exactly. The "he's got all winter to rest" philosophy makes sense in a universe where time's arrow functions :) It's more rational than my great-aunt pedaling the sewing machine faster when she was running out of thread, certainly.
If a pitcher gets used more in September and accumulates more value thereby than other pitchers in the league, then he should win the CYA. But Szym's point that he's no more valuable than an equivalent pitcher who was somehow overused in April makes sense, too.
Isn't one more important than the other? It seems like an RBI might encompass more advancements than a run scored, but it might all encompass nothing of value like a fly out to left field or a grounder to first. Do those actually balance out?
I'm thinking of odds for winning, but I admit I haven't read many mainstream articles about the race. But there's half of August and all of September left, and I think Mourneau is going to slip as Youkilis rises, and at some point people might start talking about Mauer. Like I said, wild ass guess.
This sounds like an argument for the fact that every game during the season is really important. If Willie Randolph hadn't given away a few games in the middle of the 2007 season because he thought they were meaningless, then it wouldn't have mattered that the Mets went 1-6 in their last 7 games. I said this at the time when people claimed that Willie was "playing with house money".
Sure, when it's the last game of the season and you're tied for the division lead, you know that game is important. Whereas you don't know at the beginning of the season that you'll be in a 1-game division race, so you don't know that every game in April is important. But that doesn't change their actual importance.
That'd explain why we disagree on this. Count me with those who define clutch situations as being perceptibly important. It's all about what you know at the time.
Exactly - should we give extra credit to a guy who leads his team to a 28-3 April, if that ever happens? That not only puts them in great shape for making the playoffs, it puts them in a position to rest guys up regularly throughout the season, and especially September. That's in some sense more valuable than pushing the team over the top at the end of the year.
1984 Tigers started out 35-5.
Like maybe a guy who goes 1-0 with 7 saves while his team starts the season 35-5?
I don't know. He strikes me as more along the lines of Albert Belle's 1995 season (only worse so) - he put up his big numbers mostly when the season was out of reach. I mean 7 saves out of 35 wins is nothing very special. In fact, I think part of the reason for Hernandez' big innings total might have actually been that the 35-5 start allowed the Tigers to rest some of their starters down the stretch. For example, Jack Morris had 6 complete games in the Tigers' first 40 games, then only completed 3 more the rest of the season. Hernandez' MVP has the same problem to me that Morneau's did in 2006 - he's clearly not the most valuable player on his own team (that would be Trammell, of course), so how can he be the most valuable player in the league.
As far as the guys responsible for the Tigers' 35-5 start that year, Jack Morris was 9-1 with 6 CG and a 1.97 ERA over the Tigers' first 40 games; Dan Petry was 7-1, 2.81; Milt Wilcox was 6-0, 3.08. As you say, Alan Trammell batted .340/.429/.528 while playing SS for those 40 games. In addition, Lou Whitaker batted .317/.385/.427 as a 2B and Chet Lemon hit .331/.402/.570 in CF over those 40 games.
Skimming through that team, it's kind of amazing - basically, nobody on the team got off to a bad start that season. I guess that'd pretty much have to be true for a team to go 35-5, of course.
Which guy? If a team is 28-3, there's probably going to be a bunch of guys playing really well.
I am NOT arguing these games are "more important", but I am saying these are differenrt because you no longer have the luxury of saying "we'll get them tomorrow". there aren't enough tomorrows. For instance. In April, you can give all your regulars a day off (because they need it), but in September, they need to suck it up and get out there everyday. Pitchers don't go on 3-days as much (I would guess) in April, but do in September.
Perhaps you and DMN think managers should manage April like that. I don't. You have to leave something in the tank for September.
Well, it was reasonably common back then for relievers to throw well over 100 innings. Hernandez's innings total was barely more than Aurelio Lopez (his teammate), and only 10 more than Quisenberry.
I think you're right, but he was a legitimate Cy Young winner, at least. Even without accounting for leverage, he was right up among the league leaders in run saved over an average pitcher.
I agree with you here. I think the managers should behave a bit differently when it becomes clear that they're in a close race for the playoffs than they do at the beginning of the season, and differently still if they're slightly ahead versus slightly behind. That said, I don't think it makes player performance in those games worthy of extra weight in the MVP race, since all the games count the same in the standings. It might mean a star pitcher would throw more innings, or a star hitter would have fewer off-days in a pennant race, and they'd deserve a proportional bonus for that, but that's all.
Chris, I'm not sure exactly what we're arguing about if you don't think games in September are more important than games in April. Do you think that players who perform better in September are more valuable (or more deserving of the MVP award) than players who perform well in April, all else being equal? It doesn't sound like you do.
This is true perhaps 25% of the time. Most teams have their postseason chances well defined before September.
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