THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

....except for $30M. And 2011. And one. And 5. And two.

I’m not entirely sure what the math is behind FanGraphs $$ Valuations, but according to them all of the following AL position players have been worth more than Verlander ($24.9M) this year:

Bautista- 35.2M
Pedroia- 32.5M
Ellsbury- 30.8M
Granderson 27.8M
Zobrist-27.7M
A Gonzalez- 25.4M
Kinsler- 25.1M

So why trade Verlander for Granderson? Granderson has been worth more. The point is maybe that the fact I’m even considering a Verlander-Granderson trade is proof positive that pitchers ought to be considered MVP candidates?

Yes, I think the point is that a pitcher can be considered for MVP; however, most years one or more position players will top the list.

A single baseball stat, not a single number, thanks.

***

Yes, that he’s in the conversation makes him eligible.

As long as hitters are eligible for Cy Young awards…

This is my reason for thinking that pitchers should at least be penalized in MVP voting, if not excluded entirely. The award is called “most valuable player” not “most valuable non-pitcher”, but there’s really no reason to hand Verlander a Cy Young and an MVP, is there? Unless someone wants to create the Ty Cobb (or Babe Ruth, or Tris Speaker, or whatever) award, everyone who wants to ask “Was the best hitter or the best pitcher more valuable?” can consult the WAR leaderboards.

There’s already the Hank Aaron award, it’s just that no one cares about it. Maybe the best solution would just be to push that until it becomes a topic of debate just like the MVP/CYA.

I hate it when people take a fairly straightforward question that is already hard to answer among people who agree on the terms, and then make it even more complicated by getting into a semantic argument about the meaning of the question.
As Tango seems to be saying, once you concede that pitchers have value, you cannot exclude them from consideration. I think people who argue against including pitchers are probably just lazy.

There’s already the Hank Aaron award, it’s just that no one cares about it.

You know why nobody cares about it, right?

It’s not a BBWAA award. They’d rather report on the news they get to create.

The Hank Aaron award is for the best hitter, not the best non-pitcher. In the AL, Bautista is miles ahead in the Hank Aaron race, but the MVP race is much closer, factoring in both defense and position.

For that matter, the “every fifth day” argument looks pretty weak. Say a pitcher averaged 6 innings, facing an average of 25 batters per start; he’d have faced 700 batters (can I call them “Opponent PA”?)over a season.

But the every 5th day is relevant for pitcher vs. hitter impact. The concentration of hitter plate appearances makes them less valuable, as measured by Win Probability Added. If you look at those leaderboards, the top pitchers are rarely close to the best hitters.

I’m not arguing that WPA is a key stat, but it does reflect the argument that top starting pitchers are not as valuable as top hitters.

There are 30 teams. I applied their WAR to a baseline which is the median of the top 30 pitchers/players. The final column is what I am calling WAS (Wins Above Star). As you can tell from the data a pitcher can be the biggest star in the game/league. Isn’t that what we are really talking about?
I offer up the following below:
(Verlander has a slight 3.3 to 3.1 lead over Bautista heading into September.)

PITCHER YEAR WAR LG-MED WAS
brown 1998 8.40 4.55 3.85
pmartinez 1999 8.40 4.20 4.20
pmartinez 2000 10.10 4.50 5.60
rjohnson 2001 8.40 4.30 4.10
rjohnson 2002 8.80 4.30 4.50
halladay 2003 7.50 4.80 2.70
rjohnson,santana 2004 7.40 4.80 2.60
clemens 2005 7.20 4.50 2.70
santana 2006 7.00 4.60 2.40
sabathia 2007 6.80 5.00 1.80
lee 2008 7.30 4.65 2.65
greinke 2009 9.00 5.05 3.95
jimenez 2010 7.20 4.60 2.60
verlander 2011 7.40 4.10 3.30


PLAYER YEAR WAR LG-MED WAS
bonds 1998 9.30 6.60 2.70
jeter,mramirez 1999 8.00 5.90 2.10
arodriguez 2000 11.00 6.55 4.45
bonds 2001 12.50 6.45 6.05
pujols 2002 12.20 5.85 6.35
pujols 2003 10.90 6.30 4.60
bonds 2004 12.40 5.55 6.85
arodriguez 2005 8.40 5.25 3.15
pujols 2006 8.30 5.70 2.60
arodriguez 2007 9.90 5.60 4.30
pujols 2008 9.60 5.35 4.25
pujols 2009 9.20 6.00 3.20
longoria 2010 7.40 5.35 2.05
bautista 2011 7.90 4.80 3.10

Ken/11: ... when compared to league average.  If your presumed starting point is a .500 pitcher facing 1000 batters, when looking at Felix or Verlander or Halladay, then they won’t look as hot.

But, you will certainly pay more for a .500 pitcher facing 1000 batters than you would for an average nonpitcher playing 162 games.

Michael/#10, excellent point. If you look at MLB PAs versus TBF, it’s hard to imagine “every 5th day” is not (at least) equally significant to every day. #1 in PA (Dustin Pedroia) and #10 (Michael Bourn) are 602 and 586. #1 in TBF (CC Sabathia) and #10 (CJ Wilson) are 836 and 772.

Still, this is a semantic argument. So long as people think that MVP is for batters only (or for that matter, players on winning teams only) then there is no useful discussion. The discussion lies in reframing the argument, which Tango does interestingly above. I’d put it this way: if you’re an MLB GM and all players are redrafted, would you not consider pitchers in rounds 1-2?

Oh, I like that draft thing.

Indeed, why not just look at the amateur draft, and tell me how many pitchers were selected in the top 5 in the last 10 years, even though pitchers are MUCH harder to estimate in forecasting at that young age.

Here we go:
5 pitchers: #1 overall in the last 10 years
4: #2
4: #3
7: #4
5: #5

That’s 25 pitchers selected out of 50 players selected, in the top 5 over the last 10 years.

Tango, I think that’s an interesting and useful way to look at it but I have a few reservations:

1. Amateur drafts can be context specific. Does this draft pool have deep SP talent or weak talent?
2. Not all teams draft by talent; some draft to fill needs
3. It is “well known” that pitchers are harder to predict in the draft; position players tend to pan out closer to draft status. *at least in the earlier rounds **that’s what I read, I know very little about the amateur draft

Likewise, outside of the context of video games and expansion drafts (which only provide marginal talent), GM fantasy drafts don’t exist. But if they did, they would compare stable talent and not just projections, like the amateur draft. But I think we agree on the essential element: great pitchers are highly valued by teams and therefore should not be excluded in MVP considerations.

Micah/16:

1. That was 10 years of data for the top 5 picks.

2. It was 10 years.  I didn’t see how many teams that was.

3. Pitchers are harder to predict and they have less value in terms of eventually having an MLB career, and STILL they made up 50% of the top picks.

Your objections, while valid as discussion points, aren’t valid within what I’ve done here.