Eric Chavez?

Sorry, but the AL MVP has become like the Golden Gloves for the SABRmetric community. Just give it to Alex Rodriguez based on reputation until he gets too old to hit or misses the entire season.

Carlos Delgado had an OBP .030 better than A-Rod and a better OPS. In fact, he led the league in OPS and just missed leading the league in OBP by .002. Of course, I forgot. OBP isn't an important stat in the SABRmetric community. Of course, Delgado also was better than Alex Rodriguez in Runs Created and grounded into fewer double plays. And Delgado had a better BA. And, of course, he also had a whole bunch more RBI.

The only way you could possibly justify giving it to Alex Rodriguez over Delgado is if you decided that A-Rod's defense more than made up for his inferiority on offense this year as compared to Delgado. But I'll need to see some proof for that.

Matt,

I'll need to see some proof from you that Delgado's deficit in defensive contribution is sufficiently offset by his purported offensive superiority to take the MVP award away from A-Rod.

Jhat - I like VORP as much as the next guy and while A-Rod blows everyone off the map in AL VORP, if you just go by that then Brett Boone has to come in second and Posada doesn't even come on the map. If Mr. Werr was using VORP as his leading criterion then I wouldn't argue with the choice of Rodriguez, but it doesn't appear that he is and I think he's shortchanging Delgado.

Incidentally, www.baseballgraphs.com has just posted 2003 Win Shares and it appears Rodriguez and Delgado are tied with 32 apiece.

ARod was +35 in UZR from 2001-2003. He is an excellent fielder, according to UZR. He's also excellent according to the coaches.

To compare positions, you do:
1 - Compare Player's offense relative to league overall
2 - Compare Player's fielding relative to position
3 - Compare average fielder at that position to average fielder at a neutral position

For #3, I provided a chart for that somewhere. I think you do +11 for a SS, and -12 for a 1B (or some such).

For #2, ARod would probably be around +10. I didn't check what Delgado was.

For #1, it's pretty straightforward.

Add them up, and there you go.

Eric Chavez?

I assume you're questioning how anyone could put Chavez in the top 10.

Well, Chavez finished 13th in the AL in VORP (among position players). Without considering defense, Chavez appears to be in competition for a top 10 vote, though not quite there.

Accordig to UZR, Chavez was 13 runs better defensively than the average 3B. He was 12.3 runs better than average per year over 2000-2002.

Let's look at the six players directly ahead of Chavez in VORP.

Frank Thomas is 3.4 VORP ahead of Chavez. Despite playing nearly all of his games at DH, Thomas still ends up 1 run worse than average per year defensively. Chavez clearly moves ahead after defense is considered.

Alfonso Soriano is also 3.4 VORP ahead of Chavez. Soriano comes in at 6 runs below average defensively per year for 2001-2002. Soriano also benefits by receiving more PA by batting leadoff for a great offense. Either way, Chavez comes out significantly ahead.

Edgar Martinez finished 2.5 VORP ahead of Chavez. Edgar, like Thomas, rarely plays the field, but he's below average when he does. From 2000-2002, Edgar was one run below average per year. Again, Chavez moves past him.

Nomar finished 2.5 VORP ahead of Chavez. Nomar finished 3 runs above average per year defensively from 2000-2002. Chavez moves past him, too.

Dimitri Young also finished 2.5 VORP ahead of Chavez. Young was 9 runs below average defensively from 2000-2002, so he spent most of the year at DH. Chavez, with his +12 defensive rating, moves past him.

Jorge Posada finished 0.7 VORP ahead of Chavez. Posada was 2 runs below average defensively per year from 2000-2002. Chavez moves past him.

Of position players, that leaves A-Rod, Boone, Delgado, Ramirez, Mueller, and Wells ahead of Chavez. By simply adding UZR to VORP, Chavez moves ahead of Mueller and ino a tie with Ramirez.

I realize that UZR is not going to convince many people, but every defensive rating system has Chavez as excellent. He won the Gold Glove, he led AL 3B in Win Shares, BPro rates him about the same as UZR. The offensive difference between him and the aforementioned players is small, meaning that Chavez should move past many of them once defense is considered. Most of the top AL hitters are poor/mediocre fielders.

The votes that puzzle me: Jamie Moyer??? Not a single vote for Pedro? Halladay wins the CYA, but Hudson beats him in MVP?

If Mr. Werr was using VORP as his leading criterion then I wouldn't argue with the choice of Rodriguez, but it doesn't appear that he is and I think he's shortchanging Delgado.

First of all, just to be clear, these selections weren't made by me alone but by voting among the authors, as the chart indicates.

Second, I don't use any one metric to make my choices. There's always a lot to consider with park effects and positional adjustments, but I don't think that Delgado's offensive superiority came close to compensating for the extra value A-Rod delivers by playing excellent shortstop. In fact, I personally had Delgado fourth on my ballot. I also had Posada sixth.

The quality of Arod's defense is not firmly established. True, he has won the last two gold gloves. However, I believe UZR rates him as a fairly average SS. In contrast, I believe Boone is considered a fairly excellent defender by both the Gold Glove voters and UZR. After accounting for defensive contributions, I would say the vote is closer than it is made out to be here at Primer.

Actually, UZR rated A-Rod from 2000-2002 as 35 runs above average and Boone as 10 runs above average. As a Mariner fan and Bret Boone fan (and I used to sponsor his B-R page), I would love to give my vote to Boone, and was happy that it looked like I'd be doing that through much of the year. But the way it ended up, with A-Rod clearly ahead on offense, and probably at worst even on defense and positional value, there's no way I could justify it.

But no one's going to have the objective, right answer, and in that sense, it's nice to take a vote. Obviously, A-Rod was unanimous, but there's no reason good cases can't be made for other players.

Kirk,
I'm shocked to hear that humans live in California now.

After you've given Bill Miller (the 3B who cannot spell) credit for the achievements of David Ortiz, BY (I am the poster who cannot spell relief pitcher's names) Kim, Shea Hillenbrand, Theo James, Pete Rose and George Foster, I should say he would finish higher than 10th.

But his own achievements in his own PAs? 20th would be good.

I am a Sox fan and a David Ortiz fan, but Fenway's not exactly a pitcher's park and Ortiz doesn't contribute anything defensively. As for Shannon Stewart, the only line of reasoning that makes him MVP is: "The Twins were in 3rd place when they acquired SS and they went on the win the division afterwards, therefore SS is the MVP" The Twins improved starting pitching (compared to the 1st half of the season) is far more responsible for their late surge than SS is. This is a Sabremetric site, and I for 1, am glad to see that no one fell for these BBWAA-style MVP arguments.

THIS AWARD BELONGS TO POSADA!!!!!!!!!

Delagdo deserves it as he was clean.

Yikes.

One tribe that always sent its hunters called themselves the Rayin-Gurs.

sabertoothmetrician

Weel, Rampp, Pog, Frij-Maggnit, Nok Nok-Johke, and Kahnsta-tu-shenl Mawnar-kee."

#######, I hate you.