THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

BBWAA and Michael Young

Michael Young was placed #1 by one BBWAA writer, but he was also placed #2 by another writer, and #3 by a third writer, and #4 by a fourth writer, and #5 by a fith writer, and #6 by a sixth writer.  And then 17 other writers put him at #7 through #10.

The focus on who put Young #1 completely misses the point that this is not about a single BBWAA writer, but virtually the entire group of them, as 23 of the 28 voters put him top 10.

The reality is that once you have 23 of 28 voters put a player in the top 10, it’s entirely reasonable that someone can make the case to make him #1.

Robinson Cano was named on 24 of the ballots, and Adrian Gonzalez was named on 25.  Would we have any issue if either of those two guys got a first place vote (they went as high as #3 on the actual ballots)?  No, we wouldn’t have a problem.  The reality is that the BBWAA voters saw Michael Young as being equivalent to Cano and Gonzalez.  The BBWAA AS A GROUP saw this.

The story is not about the single guy who put Young #1, but the BBWAA who put him on 23 of the 28 ballots.  It’s clear they wanted to give SOMEONE on the Rangers something. 
- Ian Kinsler is as good a hitter (and a much better fielder), but he has a .255 average, and the BBWAA cannot get past that. 
- Adrian Beltre is as good a hitter and one of the best fielders of our generation, but he missed substantial playing time. 
- Mike Napoli was a sensational hitter, but lost even more playing time. 
- Josh Hamilton is as good a hitter, but missed substantial playing time. 
- CJ Wilson is a pitcher. 

And whatever warts these guys had, compared to Michael Young, they were ALL BETTER THAN MICHAEL YOUNG.

But the BBWAA could not get past those warts.  That shiny .338 batting average and his 159 games overcame everything else, and when it came time to give someone on the Rangers some love, all that love poured right into Derek Jeter… uh, Michael Young (same thing, different team).

***

There were 658 ballots cast in the IBA. Jacoby Ellsbury led the way with being on 573 ballots, or 87% of the ballots (and the ballot goes up to 10 deep). Say what you want about the BBWAA, but 100% of its voters put Ellsbury on its ballot.  Overall, I prefer the IBA method, even if we get some jokers who try to game the system by not putting in challengers to their favorites, on the idea that the loser community who votes is going to be subsumed by the dedicated many who take the vote seriously.  The BBWAA basically pre-weeds the losers out (but by so doing, weeds out alot of the really good voters too).  And overall, we get reasonable results (Verlander, Ellsbury, Bautista in the top 3, in some order), with some head-scratcher like Michael Young getting some love, but overall, really no one is going to remember who finished 8th in 2011.