This may sound odd coming from a writer who supported Kirk Gibson’s 76-RBI MVP award for the champion Dodgers in 1988, but unless a player is clearly the one difference-maker on a playoff team, I believe the MVP should go to the best guy, period. In fact, instructions on the baseball writers’ MVP ballot read, “The MVP need not come from a division winner or other player qualifiers.”
...I can already hear the Philadelphia Phillies fans crying that Roy Halladay has done nearly as well as Kershaw under much greater pressure, contributing to a much better record, but history turns their argument lame. Some of those same folks were surely cheering in 1972 when Steve Carlton won a Cy Young Award while pitching for a Phillies team that won 59 games.
No, I would never compare Kershaw’s probable-20-win season to the year that Carlton won an amazing 27 games for that last-place bunch. But you don’t even need to look back a full year to see how winning means nothing for this award, as Seattle’s Felix Hernandez won last season with a 13-12 record for a Mariners team that finished with the worst record in the American League.
...Indeed, amid this season’s mud bath, a blessing. Here’s hoping the voters can see beyond the grime.
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1. Shooty is in the Trust TreeThe Jays actually aren't far off either with Bautista and Kemp both looking like strong MVP choices and Romero 4th in pitching WAR in the AL, Kershaw 3rd in the NL. Of course that ignores that Verlander pretty much has the AL Cy Young wrapped up, but some quality players on non-playoff teams this year. Jays are also one game above .500 right now, but they have a tough September schedule.
Lawrie and Jennings are having a nice run at "best rookie who was probably brought up too late to win Rookie of the Year Award" award.
3-4 with a double and a HR yesterday moves Lawrie to
26 games, 101 PA, 6 doubles, 4 triples, 7 HRs and .340/.392/.714
RYAN HOWARD
If I had a vote today they would go to Braun and Halladay.
Why do you say that? Don't buy Kemp's defence in CF? Roughly the same OPS+ as Braun, plays a more important position, is a far better baserunner. It seems pretty clear Kemp is having the superior season.
Hell, Gibby once had a teammate who won an MVP and didn't drive in any runs!
I always thought Gibson's MVP was a little tainted until I looked it up...his 7.2 WAR actually led the NL that year. (The more you know...)
Lee is second in WAR with 5.8 (Halladay is first with 6.4. and Kershaw is third with 5.5).
Lee is sixth in ERA with 2.59, but reasonably close to Kershaw and Halladay (Kershaw is second with 2.45 and Halladay third with 2.47).
Lee is third in wins (tied with Gallardo) with 15, with Kershaw and Kennedy first at 17 and Halladay second at 16.
Lee is fourth in WHIP with 1.053 (Hamels is first with 0.966, Kershaw is second with 1.017 and Halladay third with 1.037).
Lee is third in IPs with 194.2 (Kershaw is first with 198.2, Hallday is second with 196.2).
Lee is second in Ks with 198 (Kershaw is first with 212, Halladay fourth with 191).
Lee is first in Shutouts (to the extent that's important) with 5 (Kershaw is tied for second with 2 and there's a scrum at 1).
Lee and Kershaw are tied at second with 5 complete games (Halladay is first with 7).
Lee is second in K/BB with 4.950 (Halladay is first with the remarkable 7.640 and Kershaw is 4th with 4.240).
Finally, Lee is fourth in ERA+ with 150 (Halladay is second with 157, Kershaw and Hammels are tied at 151 for third).
The narrative hasn't been there for Lee, but if he goes on another insane 34 straight shutout inning streak, he could end up passing Halladay and Kershaw (Hammels was in the discussion until he was sidelined for a couple of weeks).
I don't understand how that's possible. Their stats are so close.
Is it all park/defense adjustment?
199 IP, 59 R, 109 RepR, 0 DefR, 50 RAR, 5.5 WAR - Kershaw
197 IP, 57 R, 114 RepR, 0 DefR, 57 RAR, 6.4 WAR - Halladay
Defense adjustment is exactly equal. The park difference is most of it - 5 runs of park factor adjustment, plus Halladay allowing two fewer runs in two fewer innings, and you have a 7 run difference.
Because runs are scarcer now than they used to be, it takes fewer runs scored to win a game, and fewer runs prevented to win a game, so that 7 run difference expands to 0.9 WAR difference.
Thanks, Matt.
Do you know if that's using partial season park factor? 2010? 3-yr avg?
The 1980 Phillies, at 91-71, had the worst record for any team with the Cy Young and the MVP. The 1962 Dodgers who went 102-63 and lost the playoff against the Giants, are the only non-first-place team.
Rick Sutcliffe did finish a close second to Steve Bedrosian for the CYA the year Dawson won MVP for the last-place 76-85 Cubs in 1987.
Kershaw's also picking up WAR with his bat, but I'm guessing they'd both have to be hitting much better for it to matter much to anyone.
There's enough starts left for all of them for things to change significantly, but my guess is that Kershaw is the favorite with the potential for this Phils starters to split up some votes. It's also worth noting that Hamels is closer to Kershaw in pitching WAR than Kershaw is to either of Lee or Halladay, and would probably be in the CY discussion with a little more win luck and/or a few more IP.
This may sound odd, but according to BBREF Gibby lead the league in WAR in 1988
Of course that year Tony Gwynn lead the NL in batting average by hitting .313
The whole league hit .248/.310/.363 (and people think this year's .253/.319/.391 league line is low...)
Always bet on the Cubs when it comes to feats of losing.
really?
And his complete lack of a sense of humor willed his team to victory!
In the sense that someone who wins the 100-meter dash by .05 seconds is very nearly the second-place finisher.
It'd also be a nice smack in the fact for Dodger management if last years "immature undisciplined" etc was this year's MVP!
It was an interesting paradigm shift, what with Jay Johnstone and his extra-large sunglasses lifting the '81 team to victory through joke-making.
The human need for narrative is pretty great. I mean, it's wacky, but I wouldn't want to lose it. I once got into a "discussion" with a professor of mind who was enthralled by this SF book in which a grocery shopping list became the basis for a religion in the future simply because it was the oldest piece of writing available to that future civilization. I thought that was crap because there's no story to a shopping list. What religion doesn't have a story?
Scientology?
Are you kidding? Scientology proves if you come up with a good enough story, you can convince people it's a religion.
I agree with the sentiment, but how is Kemp a far better baserunner? Going by steals Kemp 36/7; Braun 31/5. Going by runs from baserunning Kemp 6, Braun 5.(and if you want to argue that baserunning should be relative to position then Braun blows his position out of the water much more than Kemp does---mind you I don't argue that, but I also don't think it's an invalid argument)
Huh?
On another thread some people brought up the fact that they think baserunning stats should be compared relative to position, not relative to all players. A catcher who is a league average runner, arguably has a case for being a very good runner relative to position and that his rbase in war should reflect that.
A Canticle for Lebowitz! I found that book in cupboard one summer when I was working as a janitor at my old high school. Kind of zany premise that in the end didn't really seem to have much effect on the actual world of the book. Seemed like a poor man's Anathem.
I also read War of the Worlds and Dances with Wolves at that job. Cleaning high schools was way funner than elementary schools. Grade 2 classrooms never have any good reading material...it's like they're idiots or something.
Growing up as a baseball fans in the 70s the MSM portrayed Dodgers stadium as a HITTER'S PARK, I recall one writer dismissing the 1977 team (which had 4 different guys hit 30), as having been done in a "hitter's paradise" (and no he was not being sarcastic.
The mid to late 70s Dodgers always seemed to have good offensive numbers, guys would ht .300, get 200 hits, drive in 100 runs, and as I mentioned, were the first team to have 4 30 homer hitters (that seemed really impressive at the time)-
I had no idea that Dodger Stadium was (and had always been) a pitcher's park until Bill James said so. The Dodgers scored more runs than the Mets (my fave team) and had guys with better looking numbers than the Mets simply because the Dodgers were the better team (especially on offense)
But wouldn't this just be shifting the positional adjustment around within the existing categories not effecting the overall tally? You measure the player against the average for hitting, fielding, baserunning. Then you adjust that total for position. Taking the baserunning adjustment out of the larger positional adjustment and adding it to the baserunning tally doesn't change the final result does it? Or am I totally misunderstanding how WAR is calculated?
EDIT: to put it another way, you could adjust hitting, fielding and running by position and remove the need to do a separate positional adjustment, but that wouldn't change the final WAR would it?
Say what? Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild Things Are, Pooh, not to mention all the porn in the kids' desks ....
But wouldn't this just be shifting the positional adjustment around within the existing categories not effecting the overall tally?
Yes in theory but I'm not sure how the positional adjustment is calculated. The old school way was pretty much based purely on hitting (and maybe base stealing as opposed to overall base running); I think Tango did his looking at actual defensive shifts. Anyway, it's possible the positional adjustment is not adjusting for differences in baserunning, Rroe, or Rdp ... not that this would make a huge difference I wouldn't think.
Right. It's dumb to compute Rbase relative to position. If you're computing a positional adjustment based on how the players at different positions performed on offense, then you just include baserunning in your measure of offense and keep it as part of the positional adjustment.
Remember that with a stat like WAR, the park factor is applied to the replacement level comparison pitcher, not the pitcher in question. So the PF difference between PHI and LA is 6%, but that doesn't translate into 6% of the runs that Halladay/Kershaw allow; it translates into Halladay's replacement giving up 6% more runs than Kershaw's. So the park adjustments can be pretty sizeable.
There's a technical phrase for this. Wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong.
As did the Astros.
Don't recall the details, but it's dead easy to pick out the time frame.
I didn't get into the full discussion,(I wasn't a proponent of the adjustment) was just reading it for the most part. Either way it doesn't really matter to the point I originally brought up, which was ------How is Kemp a far better baserunner than Braun? Everything says they are pretty close as baserunners, to the point that that the phrase "Far better" should be adjusted to "slightly better" or "almost equal".
I'll fall on my sword here as the guy who said "far better". I foolishly didn't even bother checking Braun's baserunning. I didn't realize how good he is.
It's a 3 man race, not a 2 man race for the NL Cy Young.
Did you read the book? If that's the one Shooty's talking about, it's misleading to say the shopping list is the basis of a new religion. It causes a stir because it's a relic of a figure about to be canonized. The story goes on from there, but the list is just a small part of it.
Totally agree. The season Lee is having is pretty insane. His June and August were historic.
Except it was written 50 years before, of course. Canticle informed an entire generation of post-apocalypse sci-fi. Don't dis Walter Miller.
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