Primer:
-Team performance is irrelevant. This is an individual award and a player should not be punished for being in a worse situation than a fellow competitor.
-This is not an “Offensive Player of the Year Award”. Defense and base running are huge parts of the game, and I will reward players accordingly.
-With that being said, this award is not limited to position players only. Pitchers will receive due consideration.
-Position matters. This is where a lot of “value” is derived. A catcher with a .400 OBP is far more valuable than a corner infielder with the same due to positional scarcity. Therefore the positions catcher, second base, shortstop, and center field get a bit of a boost. This is reflected in WAR, as it incorporates a positional adjustment into its formula.
-I am not evaluating solely on WAR. I will look at every statistic that I feel is significant. Spoiler alert: I don’t give a shit about RBIs or batting average.
-wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created): This is a catch all number that measures overall offensive output. It is adjusted for park and league factors. For example, Giancarlo Stanton gets a boost for hitting bombs in the cavernous Marlins Park and Troy Tulowitzki loses some points for hitting in Coors Field.
My Ballot
1. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD
2. Andrew McCutchen, OF, PIT
3. Giancarlo Stanton, OF, MIA
4. Jonathon Lucroy, C, MIL
5. Buster Posey, C, SF
-Team performance is irrelevant. This is an individual award and a player should not be punished for being in a worse situation than a fellow competitor.
-This is not an “Offensive Player of the Year Award”. Defense and base running are huge parts of the game, and I will reward players accordingly.
-With that being said, this award is not limited to position players only. Pitchers will receive due consideration.
-Position matters. This is where a lot of “value” is derived. A catcher with a .400 OBP is far more valuable than a corner infielder with the same due to positional scarcity. Therefore the positions catcher, second base, shortstop, and center field get a bit of a boost. This is reflected in WAR, as it incorporates a positional adjustment into its formula.
-I am not evaluating solely on WAR. I will look at every statistic that I feel is significant. Spoiler alert: I don’t give a shit about RBIs or batting average.
-wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created): This is a catch all number that measures overall offensive output. It is adjusted for park and league factors. For example, Giancarlo Stanton gets a boost for hitting bombs in the cavernous Marlins Park and Troy Tulowitzki loses some points for hitting in Coors Field.
My Ballot
1. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD
2. Andrew McCutchen, OF, PIT
3. Giancarlo Stanton, OF, MIA
4. Jonathon Lucroy, C, MIL
5. Buster Posey, C, SF
I won’t go too far into detail about Kershaw, since I already explained his greatness in my Cy Young ballot. However, I will defend my choice to have a pitcher win MVP over a position player.
There is a longstanding bias against pitchers for this award. The general logic is that since they are only playing in one out of every 5 games, they cannot have as great an impact as an everyday player. However, on a per at bat basis, the best starters actually have a greater influence than position players.
David Price led all pitchers this year with 1009 batters faced. Ian Kinsler led all hitters with 726 plate appearances. I’m no mathematician, but having almost 300 extra chances to affect the game seems like the exact opposite of the current point of view.
Obviously, position players get to affect the game with their base running and fielding too. But how much exactly? This is where WAR is useful. It is not the be-all and end-all of statistics, but it is good for looking at the big picture since it accounts for every facet of the game. I’m not going to get into specific numbers, but Kershaw’s WAR was highest in the National League. I did not base my ballot off this; rather I used this number to validate the fact that pitchers can contribute just as much, if not more, than hitters.
McCutchen narrowly edged out Stanton for second place. If Stanton didn’t take the fastball off the face, he would have had a 12-15 game advantage on McCutchen that probably would have trumped McCutchen’s slightly better production. While it was a tragic, flukey injury, Sympathy surprisingly is not factored into WAR.
Lucroy’s MVP case was fascinating, as in any other non-Kershaw year I would have given him serious consideration for first place. Lucroy was excellent offensively, posting a 133 wRC+, better than guys like Matt Holiday, Hunter Pence, and teammate Carlos Gomez. He did this while being an elite defensive catcher, but more importantly, he did it will playing every day.
Lucroy is one of the dying breed of catchers that can actually make it a whole trip through the rotation without taking a day off. His 153 starts were best in the MLB, with only 2 other catchers starting more than 140 games and 8 other catchers starting at least 130. His 200 more at bats than the 10th most active catcher are even more valuable considering his offensive production was 33% better than league average.
And all of that is before we consider the effects of pitch framing. If this were 10 years in the future, Lucroy could very well be winning the MVP in a landslide. This is because we currently are not confident enough in our pitch framing data to definitely value it more than what we do know. Current pitch framing numbers say Lucroy saved 22.1 Runs Above Average, as per StatCorner. It is a rough estimate that 1 WAR is equal to 10 runs. If we convert Lucroy’s pitch framing numbers into wins, he would be worth close to 8.5 WAR this year. Mike Trout led the MLB with 7.8 WAR this year.
Although we can’t yet use this data with confidence, there may be a time in the not so year future when pitch framing is accurately factored into WAR. For now we have to leave it as is, but maybe one day we will look back at the seasons of Lucroy and fellow catcher Buster Posey and retrospectively give them the credit they deserve.
There is a longstanding bias against pitchers for this award. The general logic is that since they are only playing in one out of every 5 games, they cannot have as great an impact as an everyday player. However, on a per at bat basis, the best starters actually have a greater influence than position players.
David Price led all pitchers this year with 1009 batters faced. Ian Kinsler led all hitters with 726 plate appearances. I’m no mathematician, but having almost 300 extra chances to affect the game seems like the exact opposite of the current point of view.
Obviously, position players get to affect the game with their base running and fielding too. But how much exactly? This is where WAR is useful. It is not the be-all and end-all of statistics, but it is good for looking at the big picture since it accounts for every facet of the game. I’m not going to get into specific numbers, but Kershaw’s WAR was highest in the National League. I did not base my ballot off this; rather I used this number to validate the fact that pitchers can contribute just as much, if not more, than hitters.
McCutchen narrowly edged out Stanton for second place. If Stanton didn’t take the fastball off the face, he would have had a 12-15 game advantage on McCutchen that probably would have trumped McCutchen’s slightly better production. While it was a tragic, flukey injury, Sympathy surprisingly is not factored into WAR.
Lucroy’s MVP case was fascinating, as in any other non-Kershaw year I would have given him serious consideration for first place. Lucroy was excellent offensively, posting a 133 wRC+, better than guys like Matt Holiday, Hunter Pence, and teammate Carlos Gomez. He did this while being an elite defensive catcher, but more importantly, he did it will playing every day.
Lucroy is one of the dying breed of catchers that can actually make it a whole trip through the rotation without taking a day off. His 153 starts were best in the MLB, with only 2 other catchers starting more than 140 games and 8 other catchers starting at least 130. His 200 more at bats than the 10th most active catcher are even more valuable considering his offensive production was 33% better than league average.
And all of that is before we consider the effects of pitch framing. If this were 10 years in the future, Lucroy could very well be winning the MVP in a landslide. This is because we currently are not confident enough in our pitch framing data to definitely value it more than what we do know. Current pitch framing numbers say Lucroy saved 22.1 Runs Above Average, as per StatCorner. It is a rough estimate that 1 WAR is equal to 10 runs. If we convert Lucroy’s pitch framing numbers into wins, he would be worth close to 8.5 WAR this year. Mike Trout led the MLB with 7.8 WAR this year.
Although we can’t yet use this data with confidence, there may be a time in the not so year future when pitch framing is accurately factored into WAR. For now we have to leave it as is, but maybe one day we will look back at the seasons of Lucroy and fellow catcher Buster Posey and retrospectively give them the credit they deserve.