THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I’d argue that Berkman was the favorite for MVP on July 1, but that’s besides the point.

One thing I’m having a hard time coming to terms with is that I seem to agree with the writers that the MVP must come from a winning team - almost certainly one that makes the playoffs.

To me, I ask the question: “Where was this team with this player, and where would they be without him?”

Assuming the Mets make the playoffs, the answers are “Playing in October”, and “Watching the playoffs on TV” (of course you could make the same argument for Wright, Reyes, Beltran, or just about any other player since if they do make it, the margin will come down to a game or two - but in this case you pick the best player (admittedly this may not even be Delgado).

For Pujols and the Cardinals, nobody is debating whether he was the best hitter or helped his team the most (admittedly, a viable definition of most valuable).  But where are the Cardinals with him?  And where would they be without him?  Sitting at home in both cases.

That’s my way of thinking.  Value is close to meaningless if the team isn’t playing in October.  For an MVP to come from a team that doesn’t make the playoffs, the gap between him and every player on the playoff teams would have to be immense (like, I don’t know, 300 points of OPS or something - e.g. Bonds).

IF the Astros somehow make it, Berkman is a no-brainer.  If not, I have to go with Utley, because of his position, and because Wright, Reyes, Beltran, and Delgado are so close together.

I would love to be convinced that my way of thinking is wrong - because so many people whose writing I admire (yes, like you) clearly disagree.

What do you think?

Here’s how you elongate your argument.  You have a 10-man ballot, not 1.

So, you put Delgado #1.  Who do you put #2?  That is, after you remove Delgado from consideration, and you use the same determination process, who is the best choice to list?  Beltran, I suppose?  Indeed, by your reasoning, how can Pujols even be named anywhere in the top 10?

Instead, what some writers do is: the #1 guy MUST be from a playoff team.  The #2 guy SHOULD be from a playoff team 95% of the time.  By the time he’s listing his #3 pick, the playoff consideration is thrown out the window.

It’s almost as if the writers are saying: I’m going to pick the two guys most responsible for putting his team in the playoffs.  Then, I’m going to list the 8 best players, regardless of what their team did.

It really is time to ignore the MVP voting.  The sportswriters don’t pick the best player, they pick a combination of best player and best story (hence, must be on a winning team).  That’s what they do.  That’s fine for them; it’s even kind of interesting.  But it’s not the “most valuable” player.

Yeah, and I guess kind of agree, though I would probably put Pujols somewhere around 7th.  Why can he still get a vote in the top 10?  Because it doesn’t matter much if he gets a 7th place vote.

I think giving a lower vote, but still voting for a player who had an excellent season is a reasonable way to honor him. 

I can’t believe I’m agreeing with the writers…

My top 20 would probably go something like this, assuming the standings remain as they are (Mets in, Brewers out):

Utley
Wright
Delgado
Beltran
Soto
Reyes
Howard
Pujols
Berkman
Hamels
Santana
A. Ramirez
Ethier
Dempster
Chipper
H. Ramirez
Ludwick
McCann
Lidge
Lincecum

And as an aside, I hate mainstream baseball writers as much as anyone, but I have a hard time criticizing them after the 1999 Gold Glove incident.

How do you justify Pujols over Ethier under the “playoff” requirement.

Like I said, top two or three picks get the “must be playoff” requirement, and then all other picks get a “bonus” playoff consideration, on a sliding scale of bonus.

So, this is how it works. 
1. First place ballot, use WPA, and give +10 win bonus if on playoff team.  Select highest ranked player.
2. Second place ballot, use WPA, and give +5 win bonus if on playoff team. Select highest ranked player.
3. Third place ballot, use WPA, and give +3 win bonus if on playoff team. Select highest ranked player.
4. Fourth place ballot, use WPA/LI, and give +3 win bonus if on playoff team. Select highest ranked player.
5. Fifth place ballot, use WPA/LI, and give +1 win bonus if on playoff team. Select highest ranked player.
6. Sixth on down, use WPA/LI, order by best to worst.

Whether you use WPA, WPA/LI, or a “combination” of whatever you want, is up to you.  The above “logic” is what BBWAA follow.

Don’t take any offense to this but your list could be a BBWAA ballot.

Haha - I know it could be a BBWAA ballot.  And no offense taken - that’s why I’m posting here - I would like to be convinced that my way of thinking is wrong.

I guess my thinking for Pujols over Ethier is that:
- Ethier is not good enough compared to other players on playoff teams
- Pujols has to be on the ballot somewhere (in the lower half) because he had the best season

Not saying it’s logical (which is what’s troubling me)…

I see my Pujols vote as being kind of like me saying “here, I’m throwing you a bone - you had a great season and it’s not your fault you didn’t have enough good teammates - you clearly weren’t the MOST valuable because the MOST valuable player gets their team to the playoffs - but you deserve some recognition.”

I don’t know if you can strictly use WPA or WPA/LI, because I assume that nobody in the world would vote for Ricky Weeks over Chase Utley (WPA) or Conor Jackson over Giovani Soto or Andre Ethier (WPA/LI).

But yeah, I do agree, for better or worse, that the playoff team requirement has a sliding scale of bonus amount.

Ah, more proof why society (not just the BBWAA) needs a few lessons on sample selection biases.

Matt - how so?  Are you talking about more heavily weighting performance in games that are later in the season?

"Not saying it’s logical (which is what’s troubling me)… “

Cognitive Dissonance is a bitch, ain’t it?

Ten years ago, the two home town writers voted for the stud on the 83-79 team.  We’ll forgive them this, after all, their addresses were public knowledge.

But 20 of the 30 remaining voters placed McGwire second on their ballots.  What were they thinking?

Now, I don’t buy into the whole “valuable” argument any more than I buy into the notion that the Hall of Fame is supposed to recognize “fame” - the world would be a more logical place if the award were still named after Chalmers.  I recognize this, so please accept the disclaimer that I’m trying to guess at a sensible logic consistent with your premises.

But consider, when you talk about the value of making the playoffs versus not making the playoffs, you are measuring the player exclusively against the steepest part of the value curve, rather than amortizing that result against the whole season.

In other words, if Delgado is worth 7 wins, rather than calculating his value as V(90) - V(83), you might get a more reasonable outcome from (7/90) * V(90).  Think win shares, except rescaled to recognize that the value of a win is not constant.

The point being that it leaves you room to recognize that there is some value to be shared by the players on an 80 win team, and so the monster on that team really could claim credit for enough of it to earn a place on the ballot.

If we don’t treat all wins as equal---treating wins for teams on the playoff bubble as more valuable than not--- then a player’s value on a 110 win team is close to meaningless.

The 2001 Mariners won 116 games. Brett Boone didn’t win the MVP, but he came close (3rd place). Should his contributions not count for as much because they would have been a great team anyway? “If they can win 105-110 games without him, how valuable could he be?”

That being said, I think the player’s team should be at least over .500, unless it’s a really bad year for MVP voting (like the 2003 AL).

One has to wonder what Pujols did to get Belled like this.  Did the latter Albert just piss off the media so much that he tainted that first name forever?

#4

Guys with a higher WPA and Total Value* than Delgado that are in playoffs now:
Ethier
Aramis
Wright
Burrell
Beltran

Guys with a higher WPA and Total Value* than Howard (in addition to the guys above) that are in playoffs now:
Martin
D. Lee
M. DeRosa

If we were just to look at Total Value (which I lean more toward) Delgado comes in 59th in the NL and Howard 80th just including position players, including NL pitchers Delgado 96th and Howard 132nd.

*Total Value is taken from Jinaz which are now almost 3 weeks old, in which Howard and Delgado have improved, but you get the point.

Tango - Since you advocate WPA, why are you touting (couldn’t think of a better word to use there) Pujols and not Berkman?  Just curious.

I’m catching up on discussions, and just posted this at fangraphs in the Moose for HOF discussion (which I’m not sure why there’s even a question):

I believe the only thing keeping Pujols from being a guaranteed famer is the 10 year rule. 2 years from now he’ll be a hall of famer no matter what.

The only thing keeping him from being the greatest player of the last 8 years is Barry Bonds.  In my mind, there is no questions he’s should be in the HOF.

Sean: I’m not touting anyone.  I just like using Pujols as the ideal example of the best player in baseball, who performs every year as one of the best players in baseball, and yet is shunned aside in favor of the story du jour.

***

The Pujols HOF posts might find a better place here:
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/jim_rice_how_about_vladimir_guerrero_and_andruw_jones/

Dan - “If we don’t treat all wins as equal---treating wins for teams on the playoff bubble as more valuable than not--- then a player’s value on a 110 win team is close to meaningless.”

Yes, I believe this is true.  I would not give the MVP to anyone on a team that won its division by 25 games, no matter what.  Where would they be without that player?  Still in the playoffs.  Hence, no added value.

Is my mind twisted or what?

I guess my algorithm (for picking one guy) is this:

- take all of the players on playoff teams
- of these, take all of the players who, if you replaced them with a replacement player, would no longer make the playoffs
- of these, take the “best” (by some measure - maybe WPA/LI or WAP)

But yes, far and away the prime distinction is that if the player was removed from his team, they would no longer make the playoffs.

Jon, that’s for your first five or so placed ballots.  Starting at #6 or so, you have new criteria, correct?  You start to realize “Huh?  Where’s Pujols?  How’d I let him slip by.  Ok, let me take a timeout, I’ll drop the playoff qualifier.... ok, there, Pujols makes it… now, let me revert back to my playoff qualifier idea for the next two spots, and then I’ll drop the qualifier again, and....”

You have perfectly demonstrated the inner workings of the head of a BBWAA voter.  Thank you for making our point.

And thank you for letting us rib you so much on it.  You’ve actually provided a great benefit here.

AND, I am the absolute most logical, technical, pragmatic person you’ll find, otherwise.  I don’t know, at some point, I just got caught up with constant reminders that “it’s not the best player, or best hitter - it’s most valuable.”

And yeah, like I said - throwing Pujols on at 6th or 7th is like saying “There’s no way you can be MVP, but here’s a pity vote for you.” And the guys after him get a bonus for helping lead their teams to the playoffs.  It’s not that I threw out that criteria for Pujols, it’s that he is good enough to offset the need for a playoff team at that point.

If his OPS was 1.400 he’d be good enough to top Utley et al and win it.

Glad to be of service

I can get behind giving a bonus to playoff participants.  And I can get behind giving an addition bump to players whose teams were somewhere in the 85-93 sweet spot and made the playoffs.  Maybe just a little more than a tiebreaker, but I can see the utility of it.

But I get lost when we extend it past that.  Let’s say the Mets beat out the Brewers by a game to win the Wild Card.  That’s a HUGE point in Delgado’s favor in a lot of folks’ mind. 

But what about if we just keep extending that?  Let’s assume that any player we take out of the equation on the Mets is “truly” a replacement player and would perform as such; 0 WAR exactly for the season.  So then if we know that Ryan Church is worth exactly 1.6 WAR (he’s probably not, but whatever).  Without Church, you would expect that the Mets finish behind the Brewers.  Is Church then more valuable than Pujols?

Of course this is a rather absurd extension, and really just goes back to what Tango has been talking about in this thread, but still, it’s just an odd circumstance to me.

paragraph 3 should say “out of the equation on the Mets is replaced by a player who is “truly” a replacement player.”

Jon - being a Yankee fan trains you to think the way you do (I know because I am one). When your team is expected to make the playoff, the significance of the regular season is somewhat diminished, unfortunately. Hence, “what’s the difference between an 89 win or an 81 win or a 70 win season?” But by definition, the MVP is who was most valuable to their teams during the regular season, not “who was most crucial to help a team reach the playoffs.”

By similar logic, any team that runs away with their division should have their players excluded from the MVP race, because no player is worth 10 or 15 wins, and thus it doesn’t really matter if they were on the team.

Then we’re really limiting the pool of players to choose from. If we limit it to teams that either just made the playoffs or just missed them, then how many players are we really even taking into consideration?

Let’s say the range is 85 to 95 wins to be considered either in contention or just making it. In 2007, there were only five AL teams in that range. Boston had 96 wins, but would have had to win 7 fewer games to be eliminated from the playoffs (so if you take out Ortiz they’d still have made it). Toronto was the only other team close to 85,but they finished in third place and 13 games out of first, and 11 out of the wild card, so they’re not considered “in contention.”

Using the 5 teams in the 85-95 range--Yankees, Indians, Tigers, Angels and Mariners-- we come up with 5 main candidates: A-Rod, Victor Martinez, Ichiro, Magglio, and Vlad.

We obviously wouldn’t have a problem picking an MVP from that group, but doesn’t such a small group of candidates make you feel uncomfortable? In elections, which essentially consist of two candidates, voters often pick the candidate that they “dislike the least.” Should the same happen with our MVP votes?

dan, exactly the point I’m trying to make. The MVP/playoff argument just doesn’t make sense if you extrapolate it at all.

Jon/#9,

Exactly what I’m talking about, especially with respect to baseball.

Sorry for the late response.

You may not see me around here much more.  I agree with Murray Chass on something.  I might have to blow my head off now:

http://www.murraychass.com/?p=313

He even supports OPS?!!??!

I still don’t see how he has a leg to stand on. I wouldn’t put Howard in my top-five list of most valuable Phillies.

According to Justin’s Total Value, Howard was the 10th best Phillie.  Just think about that, that that can even be said says how ridiculous it is to think Howard is the NL MVP.

How can Chass write that there is no clear definition of MVP and then chastise people for thinking it could be “the best player”?

And how can he not even address the question of who the MVP of the Phillies was before claiming Howard should have been MVP?