Tag: american league mvp

Looking At MVP Candidacy Of Ramirez, Lindor.

The Indians and Red Sox are playing a four game series in Fenway Park this week, which is a matchup of two teams who will be playing in October.

However, a secondary battle will be going on, with four big time candidates for the American League MVP on the field, Boston’s Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez, and the Indians’ Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor.

The quartet are all in the league leaders in WAR, as well as ranking high in all of the traditional statistics too.  Betts currently leads in WAR at 8.3, with Ramirez 3rd, Lindor 4th, and Martinez 8th.

In terms of offensive WAR, Ramirez is 2nd, Betts 3rd, Martinez 4th, and Lindor 6th.  Betts is regarded as the best defensive rightfielder in the sport, but Lindor actually has a higher defensive WAR because he plays a more important defensive position.

In runs created, the four rank in the top five in the AL.

We aren’t going to comment on the two Boston players candidacy, but needless to say, both are great players and would be worthy winners of the MVP.  But we think the two Indians have a better case, and here’s why.

The Tribe is third in the American League in runs scored despite no one besides Ramirez and Lindor having an OPS over 850 among players with over 100 at bats.  Michael Brantley, having a solid season, is third in this statistic at 823 currently.

By contrast, two other Red Sox are over that figure–Xander Bogaerts at 875 and Andrew Benintendi at 877.  Boston leads the AL in runs scored, and you can see why with four outstanding hitters in their lineup every day.

We have been saying this all season long, but the Cleveland attack is very often dependent on the two players manning the left side of their infield.

Really, who else is contributing on an every day basis offensively?

Edwin Encarnacion has dropped off from a year ago, his batting average down almost 30 points, his on base percentage down 60 points.  Over the last month, we have seen opposing teams pitching around Ramirez in key situations to get to the veteran slugger.

Yonder Alonso has done well in maintaining the power spike he had a year ago, already setting a career high in RBIs with 70, but he hasn’t had as good a season as Carlos Santana had with Cleveland a year ago.

Yan Gomes has slumped after the All Star break, so Terry Francona isn’t really getting good hitting out of centerfield, catcher, rightfield, and second base.  That’s almost half of the batting order.

Yet, the Tribe is scoring more runs than anyone in the Junior Circuit save for Boston and New York.  That’s how valuable the duo of Ramirez and Lindor have been.

And it hasn’t been just this season either.  Ramirez, of course, finished third in the voting a year ago, and Lindor has finished in the top ten the past two seasons, 9th in 2016 and 5th last season.

We also have to remind everyone again, that Ramirez won’t turn 26 years old until next month, and Lindor won’t be 25 until November.  They are still getting better folks.

Right now, Betts has the WAR lead, and that goes a big way in determining the MVP, and we understand that.  But if the word “valuable” is considered, keep in mind that the Indians’ offense is being carried by the duo of Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor.

That’s our case for both of them.

MW

AL MVP Voters Got it Right

The two most discussed issues so far in baseball’s off-season have been the dismantling of the Miami Marlins roster after just one year in their new ballpark, and who should be the American League MVP.

The old school thought was triple crown winner Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, while the Sabermetric viewpoint was that the Angels’ Mike Trout should receive the award.

As a matter of full disclosure, we read all of Bill James’ Baseball Abstracts when they came out, and learned a different way of thinking about the game from James.

In the mid 80’s, when his book first game out, he was the first guy talking about the importance of slugging percentage and on-base percentage, and having a player who gets on base in the leadoff spot is much better than having someone with speed that can’t get on base.

We use OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) a lot in talking about baseball.

James changed the way fans thought about the game.

But Miguel Cabrera still deserved the AL MVP.

He led the league in batting average, a statistic devalued by the stat people, but it wasn’t like the Tiger third baseman didn’t have a good on base percentage or slugging percentage.  He most certainly did.

The stat based people say Cabrera didn’t have a good enough WAR.

WAR is wins over replacement player, and is an interesting number to look at.  However, it is a calculated number.

Yes, yes, batting average is too, but it is determined by dividing hits by times at bat.  Those numbers come right out of your nightly boxscore.

WAR and its cousin VORP (value over replacement player) are not.  Here is the definition of WAR from Fangraphs.com:

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player’s total contributions to their team in one statistic.

The key word there is “attempt”.

Who knows?  You could look at a few different numbers and determine that Jack Hannahan should be the MVP.

Not really, but you get my point.  WAR and VORP are nice numbers to look at, but they don’t have the same validity as someone’s slugging percentage.

That isn’t to say they aren’t useful at times, in fact, we used VORP to show how terrible Casey Kotchman was for the Indians this year.  He had a negative value, which meant you could call up someone from the minors and they would be better.

But the factors used to calculate the numbers are arbitrary.  They were arrived at with a great deal of research and matched up with historically great players so they make sense, but they are still arbitrary.

Mike Trout had a tremendous season, and barring injury will have a tremendous career.  That said, Miguel Cabrera was the rightful winner of the MVP.

The other problem is the attitude of the some of the statistic supporters.  They act like people in a political debate.  They are right, “traditional” baseball people are wrong.

That’s it.  There is no room for discussion, and why can’t people see that batting average is overrated.

The stat people rave about guys like Adam Dunn because they hit home runs and walk a lot.  However, he also strikes out a unbelieveable amount of times and batted .208.

Think about how White Sox fans feel when Dunn whiffs with a man on third and less than two outs.

Dunn has value, no question about that, but he’s not a great hitter.  Even if batting average doesn’t mean much, .208 still isn’t very good.

Some of the information generated by the stat people today are useful.  However, the game is still won by whoever scores more runs.

Not by which lineup has a better WAR.

MW