MVP Norms
Cultural norms are a powerful force. Even though we have different backgrounds, we were raised with similar understandings of how certain aspects of the world work, and we agree to abide by these rules without much thought. We eat three meals a day because, well, that’s what we do. I can’t tell you why I sit around waiting for lunch time when I’m hungry and my body is asking for food – I just know I’m supposed to eat around noon. I’m sure there’s a reason for it, but I have no idea what it is, even though I’ve been eating for 29 years now.
It occurred to me today that our discussions about what constitutes a player’s value at award time is kind of like that. Especially if you’ve been a part of the statistical analysis crowd for any length of time, you have a pretty well defined idea of what the parameters of value are. Offense counts the most, obviously. Most people will adjust for the expectations of the defensive position you play, even if they won’t factor in how well you play that position. How well your team performs as a whole matters to some more than others, which is also true of stuff that gets labeled as intangibles, leadership, chemistry, etc…
Not everyone weights everything the same, but the things that we’re attempting to measure are all pretty much agreed upon. I’m wondering, though, is this a case where we agreed to the definition without really thinking about why we did it?
Specifically, I’m wondering why salary is not included. By anyone. Ever.
In terms of practical value to a team, there is no real difference between a player’s salary and the position he plays. The entire point of adjusting for position is to account for the opportunity cost of occupying that spot on the field. If the Tigers didn’t have Miguel Cabrera, they’d get some other decent hitting first baseman, because it’s not all that difficult to find a guy to play that position and hit competently. This matters, and we account for it. Almost everyone does, anyway.
Yet, we never factor in the opportunity cost of a player’s portion of his team’s budget, even though it is the exact same concept. If a player makes $15 million and his team has a $100 million budget, he comes with a significant opportunity cost, as he has effectively lowered the budget for his 24 teammates to $85 million. If he made the league minimum, the franchise would have $99.5 million to surround him with talent, and he would invariably have more talented teammates, given that the guy picking them was not named Dayton or Minaya.
We hear players lauded all the time for “making their teammates better”, yet we ignore the one instance where the player actually does directly influence the performance his teammates are likely to offer. Why? Is there any real good reason why salary shouldn’t be considered in our discussions of value? It matters at least as much as the position they play, and in many cases, a lot more.
This is made plainly evident in trade negotiations with high salaried players. Often times, a team trading the player of value with a significant contract will offer to pay a portion of the remaining amount due to the player in order to increase the return they’re getting in talent. There is no way around it – teams are explicitly stating that they value player X at a certain threshold when he’s paid salary Y, but they value him at a higher amount if he only has to be paid salary Z instead. His value is inextricably tied to how much money he earns.
This is why teams that trade away stars so often come out of it looking just fine – they take the money they would have spent on the traded player and give it to some other talented player, replacing a portion of his value in the process. Just like if a team loses a first baseman, they go out and find another guy who can hit okay. Filling the first base spot isn’t very hard, and neither is getting a valuable player when you have $15 million to play with.
Yet no one accounts for this in any MVP discussion. Why? Because we’ve never cared about salary, so why start, I guess.
I’d write more about this, but it’s noon, and I think that means I’m supposed to go eat now.
6
But veteran presense!
Like some guy in a forum once asked, how awesome would the A’s be if they stopped playing Moneyball and had Hudson, Harden, Zito, Mulder, and Haren on the team?
(this actually happened).
I would LOVE for the A’s to still have Mulder.
Imagine Haren, Carpenter, Wainwright.
It is interesting that money never comes up when attempting to measure something with the word value in it. Probably the main reason is that it would be too cut and dry. From a marketing point I know MLB would go to great lengths to dissuade such thinking.
A big part of it is really simple. Not everyone is on a level playing field as far as salary. Players who have yet to hit free agency are simply more valuable in terms of salary due to MLB rules, not performance. Exercising market value generally shouldn’t count as points against a player.
Why not? They are less valuable. Everyone agrees on this, including the teams – this is why Manny Ramirez can clear waivers or Jake Peavy can get traded for a mediocre collection of prospects.
Voters clearly do not care about fairness. They penalize players for things they can’t control all the time – specifically, the performance of their teammates.
I think we all know, on some level, that baseball’s pay structure is highly… what’s the word? Distorted?
Younger players get screwed. Old guys sometimes get overpaid. And so on.
To me, “MVP” = best player. He creates the most value. What he is paid is irrelevant to me. It does not change the player’s on-the-field performance, which is what I care about.
I know some people disagree that MVP = best player. They want to go on and on about what “value” means. If you’re in that camp, I guess I kinda sorta get your argument. If not, I really have no idea what you’re trying to do.
I agree with Rob in CT on this one. I definitely get the argument, but I think the bigger problem is the use of the word “valuable” in the name of the award, which has become another cultural force that would be odd to change. (Anyone want a Best Overall Player or maybe Best Position Player award, since that’s what it really is, in the future?)
Since MVPs are remembered by the media, in history, in Hall of Fame balloting, etc., I think mostly everyone wants to see the best player in the league get the award. I mean, no offense to Evan Longoria, but does anyone really want anyone but Joe Mauer to be remembered as the star of the AL this year?
That said, that brings us right back to the cultural aspect of the argument, since honestly, I would rather have Longoria and his contract than Mauer and his own. I still think the wording of the award name is the bigger issue though.
Random thought: If the award that counts for Hall of Fame consideration were to depend on salary, I wonder if it would put deflationary pressure on players’ salaries (i.e., would everyone want a contract like Longoria’s?).
It’s just a less compelling question, “Who overproduced his salary the most?” is a bit of an esoteric discussion for most people. They want to argue about who’s the best player.
As far as the MVP award specifically, its rules state votes should be based on “an actual value of a player to his team, that is strength of offense and defense”. At least on my reading, that forecloses taking the player’s salary into account; it’s telling you to vote for the guy who was the best on the field.
Except that every year, the writers make a huge point of differentiating “most valuable” from “best player”. They have explicitly stated, hundreds of times, that this is not a best player of the year award.
Right, and I think a lot of people don’t like that, and the usual response is to point out that the rules say they should be voting based on strength of offense and defense. Those same rules would also preclude them from voting based on salary.
Dave, are you conflating your readers (sabr-folk) with BBWAA voters? Even though the voters got it “right” this year, I still have 0 respect for the process, and for the voters.
Personally, I try to limit my evaluation of these awards based on on-field performance. Which is why I have no problem voting for A-Rod (salary), or a Bonds (personality), or guys with criminal records — all that stuff is off-field. Salary is an external thing too.
I’d be more inclined to consider salary in MVP voting if the playing field were level. The artificial friction imposed by teams owning players for 6 years, and the arb system, really mean that some of those factors are outside a player’s control. So, while BBWAA writers will consider things outside the player’s control (teammates, pennants, etc.), I will not.
Rick, could you fix the process in 10 minutes?
The thing I disagree, with, though, is that just because someone earns a big salary, means he should be penalized in MVP voting?
Now I know trying to throw a pity party for a man who makes $15+ mil a year playing baseball is probably an effort in vain, but if salary becomes a key element in MVP voting, we might as well give the award to the annual pre-arb phenom.
Sort-of Example: Ryan Zimmerman made over $11 mil less than Pujols in 2009, and posted a WAR of 7.1 vs. Pujols 8.4. Is it really fair to say Zimmerman is more deserving of said individual award because he makes less?
Or am I reading too much into what you said, Dave, and for that reason just wasted about 5 minutes of my life?
If he earns a big salary, he is limiting his team’s ability to surround him with better players. That makes him less valuable. It’s not a penalty – it’s a reflection of the reality of roster construction.
To be clear, though, I’m not arguing that salary should be taken into account. I’m asking why its not. I’ve never considered it part of the discussion either, so I’m not lobbying for people to come around to my way of doing things. I don’t do it either.
I’m just not sure why.
I get what you’re saying now.
There will always be people close to the game that want to make the MVP a moralistic venture more than a performance one, so if you want to argue intangibles and making the team around him better, what better way than argue for the player who’s most underpaid?
(Yet another reason why Youkilis at $6.25 mil is worlds more valuable than Teixeira at $22.5 mil).
Another big reason is that we don’t consider the ability to draw fans to the park and create revenue. As much as we say players are paid on performance, in some ways they are not. The Yankees tend to pay a bit of a premium to get quality talent, to maintain their overall financial edge (and in the case of the Yankees, spending $20 million on one player doesn’t always mean less has to be spent elsewhere).
If we look at salary metrics of players, shouldn’t we look at the converse of that? If Chase Utley is paid $10 million, earns $30 million in WAR, and the Phillies sell 10 million jerseys because they are a playoff team and Utley’s popularity (not saying this is true, just saying it’s something you can’t immediately dismiss) is Utley now worth somewhere north of $30 million? If salary considerations are to be taken into account, shouldn’t revenue in account for something? And at that point, are we really going to pick MVP’s based on jersey sales?
I think the reason why we don’t is because it’s external to their performance on the field. Sure, BBWAA voters consider off field stuff all the time, but I think it’s absolutely retarded of them to do so.
Plus there’s the complexity issue — if we are to consider salary, shouldn’t we also look at expected costs associated with bonuses, winning awards, buyouts? We would also have to consider trade values — a guy with a no-trade is less valuable than someone without that clause. Further, we would have to consider market size — reference “Diamond Dollars” for a clearer argument, but it basically suggests that it makes sense for the Yankees to pay $10 mil for each additional win brought by a player, but might only make sense for my Padres to pay $200k for that additional win.
It could be done, but it would get complex quickly. And it still considers off field issues, which I think should only be considered during a strict stalemate, when you really cannot differentiate between candidates.
Dave, it’s a good question and a well thought out piece. But I have to agree with Joe R., it would simply become an award given to the best pre-arb player.
I don’t think the math works any other way. Salaries for players with 1-4 years of service time (I’m rolling in the first arb award just based on a “gut feeling”, I can’t back that up with actual numbers) are just so out of proportion with FA salaries that the most “value” is probably always going to come from this group.
We might as well just name it the Evan Longoria Award.
You are assuming that a team spends that cash wisely on quality players! Not a valid assumption for every team!
Oh and $15 million a year for the Pirates is not the same thing as $15 million a year from the Yankees.
Hey Steve, I don’t think Dave was even arguing a point he agrees with, I think he’s just bringing up the “If we vote based on A, then why not the better version of A” point.
In a prime example of why I scored so poorly in the analogy part of the SAT Verbal section:
Batting Average : On Base Average :: Intangibles : Value over Contract
I think the Evan Longoria Award would actually be for players who could be pre-arb phenoms, but instead they are extremely underpaid because they signed a 6 year or whatever deal three years before becoming arby eligible. Or maybe this is the Friend of Eric Hinske Award.
Another thing to consider ….
The guy with the big conract likely has some “star power”, which *could* lead to more fans in the seats, resulting in more revenue for the team … meaning the team could spend money on better players … or influence better players to want to play there.
~~~If he earns a big salary, he is limiting his team’s ability to surround him with better players. That makes him less valuable. It’s not a penalty – it’s a reflection of the reality of roster construction. ~~~
He might also put more butts in the seat, resulting in greater revenue for the team to spend on better players.
This would be tough to measure given all of the factors that go into a player’s value, and attendance/revenue.
Would we be willing to do the same thing at our workplace? Take less money than we’re worth so that the employer can give new employees more money (perhaps even more than we make, even if we’ve “done more” for the employer)? … with no guarantee that we might suffer some type of injury that would decrease our value greatly or prevent us from working at all?
It’s an interesting discussion. Bad idea for MVP voting (IMO), but an interesting discussion.
huh. I like the rules for MVP as is… I don’t really think it would be fair to allways give MVPs to pre-arb guys, even if they are more valuable. I do think it would be fun to start a new award with salary included and see who comes out on top. Not going to look it up, but Evan Longoria comes to mind right away.
How would we calculate it? Would we consider the team’s payroll concerns as well as the player’s salary? Was Joe Mauer as valuable as Adrian Gonzalez (both in the 25 mil range for excess dollars)? Anyway, I’d love to see a post outlining who some of these salary-included MVPs are.
WAR/Salary as percent of total team payroll?
I just assume that “most valuable player” means “best player in a given year.” I get what Dave’s saying, but I think we’re looking at two different definitions of “value,” in which the value assessed by voters for MVP awards isn’t technically value, but production. The Most Productive Player in a Given Year Award just doesn’t have the same ring to it, though.
But if you believe the MVP award should go to the player who was truly the most valuable to his team (however you would quantify that) instead of just the best player, then I think salary is something that should at least be considered.
Really? The answer is simple:
No Yankee would ever win the award again. And no award season is fun without a Yankee being in the conversation.
Actually last award season was very fun, bozos like Tim McCarver had no one to orgasm over.
I swear to God, I’ve never wanted to puke more from baseball watching than the time Teixeira made a good play at 1st (the ball was hit right at him though), and McCarver stated orgasmically “Oh, when was the last time an MVP also won a gold glove?”
1) Teixeira didn’t deserve the GG
2) GG doesn’t matter
3) You sound ridiculous
4) Pedroia, 2008, aka LAST SEASON YOU IDIOT
But I forgot, Yankees sucked in 2008, so 2008 didn’t count.
I can only assume that Xavier was being snarky.
I assumed that, but I posted that anyway.
Mainly cause I like taking potshots at McCarver.
The assumption that a large salary hurts a team because it prevents them from signing other players only applies to small market teams so actaully any Yankee could still be in the running because even if they have some extremely overrated player (like a SS for example) who they are paying >$20M they can still sign any player they want to so this players rediculously high salary does not prevent the team from being better. So much so that in theory it may still be possible for a team like the Yankees to have 4 players making >$80M and still sign the top 3 free agents in the offseason.
I think a lot of it is because it’s not my money. It’s easy to look at ownership and complain that my team would win if they would just spend like the Yankees. The numbers are so big, most people can’t get there mind around the difference between 2 million a year and 20 million a year so it all becomes funny money and all those owners are rich anyway, so why don’t they buy me a championship? The average fan doesn’t understand or care if Billy Butler is a better deal than Mark Texiera. They don’t understand payroll flexibility. Most don’t understand that RBI’s are overblown and you expect them to understand WAR? Not to get to political, but the same thing happens with healthcare. Very few people actually pay there own medical bills. They want the latest, greatest, most expensive tests and treatments and don’t care what it costs since the insurance company or the government pays most of the bill. If I meet my deductible, what do I care if the test costs $50 or $50,000? In both these situations, money becomes a dirty word. People see it as an excuse and nobody wants to hear about it. If some owner stood on the podium at the winter convention and said “OK, we can land Hiolliday if every man, woman and child in the audience writes me a check for $1,000 right now,” he wouldn’t get the checks, he wouldn’t have enough money if he did and he’s get run out of town on a rail. It’s a basic disconnect that is very difficult to overcome since the numbers involved are foriegn to the fanbase.
Sure, people will complain when they rise the price of tickets and hot dogs but that happens later and people have bad memories. They have trouble equating increased expenses with a need for increased revenues. besides, like I said before, they see those owners (and the players) as a bunch of rich guys who owe them something.
Excellent Dave. I can’t argue with your logic one bit.
Dave Cameron: Making friends and building bridges to fans of teams everywhere!
I think the simple answer is it would create really goofy results in practice. It would be a pre-arb-or-extreme-outlier player of the year, while there would be no award to distinguish great players throughout their primes.
Another way to look at, though, is that teams aren’t trading players, they’re trading contracts, which just happens to afford them the services of the player. Ryan Zimmerman at his contract may very well have been a better value than Albert Pujols at his this year, but the Pujols the player was more valuable than Zimmerman.
Taking it outside of baseball, a Ferrari is a more valuable car than a Saturn, but winning a free Saturn in a contest is more valuable than buying a Ferrari at market value.
i am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Just to be that guy:
Its best to eat if you’re hungry. Keep snacks in the office and at home for between meals. Even eat 5 meals a day instead of 3. That can be problematic in a work environment were it may be difficult to keep food around, but simple things like some almonds, a can of tuna (I know it stinks, buts great for you), a powerbar, or some peanut butter and crackers are great for those 11am and 3pm munchies. And even if you have to eat junk food (say a snickers bar), its better to avoid those extreme hungers followed by mass gorging (even if its with something relatively healthy). Its all about your hormonal levels. Also, if you can, eat your biggest meal for lunch. This won’t just make you loose weight and avoid being hungry, it will make you more productive at your job. Speaking of which….
I think salary should be used as more of a tie-breaker between 2 players who had equal performance, instead of part of the process about who was better.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post. I never thought of this either, but it does make a lot of sense. The problem is that each team has a different payroll and may or may not have a hard-lined budget. So, if Player A and Player B are of equal production on separate teams but A makes $15 million and B makes $5 million, who is to say that Team with Player A would spend the $10 million elsewhere if they had Player B?
Perhaps, Team A (with Player B) would have a smaller payroll by$10 million and thus the real value would be in the owner’s pocket.
Additionally, just as we can’t fault players for the lack of talent around them, why should we fault players for the lack of spending will by the owners?
Now look at high-spending teams. Say Youk and Tex are of equal production but Tex makes $15 million more than Youk. On other teams, that difference could be a stud pitcher. But on the Yankees, they could just go after that stud pitcher anyway.
As a result, I like the thought but not for baseball. It would be great to see in a sport like football with a clear salary cap. In that instance, I think a player’s salary should definitely be considered in MVP voting. Not only is it not considered, but the reverse effect happens. I’m a huge fan of Peyton Manning, and for years, people gave him extra credit for winning games in spite of not having a good defense. Well, perhaps if he took a smaller salary, then the team could use that money on star defensive players.
It’s an intriguing discussion at the least.
Along these lines, is there an analysis out there that compares all players, and how they performed relative to their salaries? It would be interesting to see how this breaks down on an individual level, as well as on a team level.
Beyond the Boxscore had a series going about the VOC (value over contract) of each player on a lot of teams.
Dibs on Soriano and Wells
To me, this argument over whether or not salary should come in to play when valuing a player is really only valid when you’re dealing with a sport that has a hard cap.
Just because the Yankees are paying Mark Teixeira $22 million (or whatever he’s actually making) doesn’t de-value the rest of the roster. There’s an unlimited amount of funds that can be used to upgrade the others players, if ownership deemed necessary.
But in a capped world, hypothetically, Player A on Team B making $5 million a year against a hard cap of $50 million is taking up 10% of the cost that Team B has to allocate to build a roster. From there, the comparison of salary vs. salary is more relevant.
a player is not responsible for his salary – it’s determined by the market, his accrued playing time, etc. the mvp goes to the best player, not the best contract. if you were to give an award for the best contract, it should go to the GM and not the player, no?
You know, that might be a good idea. Make this an award, but give it to the GM who signed the guy. The problem is that many of the guys weren’t signed, they were just brought up through the system. The GM might be getting an award for someone his predecessor drafted.
Over at Beyond the Box Score, we’re throwing around the idea of a Most Value over Contract Award (not sure on the rules just yet, but we’ll get to that). VOC measured over a bunch of signings can be a good measure for Best GM.
If you’re asking for the principle upon which MVP voters make their selections, and one that rules out salary, the closest we can come is something like ‘most valuable performance’: this doesn’t include character issues (which in the end play some but not a huge role in MVP voting), but it does include both the on field performance and the increased marginal value of that performance for teams that make the playoffs. It is not the value of the player to the team that is being honored but the value of the player’s performance, which removes salary from the discussion.
So Dave, can you run the numbers and tell us who the most “valuable” player this year was, relative to his salary? I guess it would be WAR/Salary, or some such. Seems likely this would be the ROY or another very young player who had a great year. How about a top 10 for each league?
It would also be fun to see the least “valuable” players relative to salary. Is Vernon Wells really the worst contract in baseball?
WAR/Salary doesn’t work. A 1 WAR, 1 mil player is not more valuable than a 8 war, 10 mil player. Surplus value is better which is just value (WAR*4.4mil) minus salary. I’m not sure that’s perfect either, though
I would argue Jose Guillen because the Royals can’t afford the loss as much as the Blue Jays.
The Royals can afford the $12 million still owed Guillen more than the Jays can afford the $107 milllion owed to Wells.
because salary is decided off the field and wins and performance are decided on the field.
So uh… Ben Zobrist come and claim your MVP?
This is a fairly interesting question. Two thoughts:
1. Isn’t it only in recent decades that player salaries have even been known, much less discussed so freaking much? Hence, prior voting did not consider it, and its absence was unremarkable. I imagine this is why the norm exists. (Also, the norm may persist at least in part because so many fans don’t give a [hoot] what players make. (This is also why homers and RBI have persisted, so judge that how you will.) )
2. I think the question at hand rests partly on semantics. It appears you are defining value as “equivalent worth or return in money.” But when I hear the word, my first thought is “monetary or material worth.” (Both definitions quoted from dictionary.com.) The first should probably include salary considerations, but the second cannot.
WilsonC’s Ferrari/Saturn example spells this out nicely: under my definition, the Ferrari is *always* more valuable, because it is worth more money. Doesn’t matter how much I paid for it; it is the more valuable piece of property and thus my MVC.
Dave-
1. Great, great article. I think this is even better than your usual ouputs, which are pretty great themselves.
2. I was literally thinking about this this morning. “Value” should really be examined further. You wanna hear a bold prediction? As the new wave of sports writers take over the voting and the Jon Heyman’s of the world are phased out, player salaries will be factored into the equation. The same way positional adjustments and defense are working their way into the current formula. The BBWAA got it right, for the most part this year. It’s a work in progress.
I need to excuse myself from this conversation so that I can finish dry-heaving over someone listing Yunel Escobar 5th on their MVP ballot.
http://bbwaa.com/
I don’t really agree with the general gist of this argument, but if you were going to calculate this, it would be something like:
WAR * (salary of player/salary of team).
At least using that metric would help square the idea that each team’s budget is different by looking at the percentage value of the budget each player is supposed to cost. As has been mentioned, however, this is still a dumb idea because of the way the major league baseball contract and arbitration system works.
If you make a WAR per Salary metric of almost literally any kind Zobrist and Greinke will be atop the list, as they were both exceedingly inexpensive and posted the top 2 WARs of the season
I wouldn’t throw a hissy fit if Greinke or Zobrist got an MVP. Then again, for whatever reason, I feel less outrage over MVP awards than Golden Gloves and Hank Aaron awards. I wish I cared not a lick for either, but that’s the way it is.
Instead of just looking at salary vs production like some are suggesting I think it is more in the spirit of what Dave is talking about to look at percent of payroll a player takes up vs something like percent of individual WAR / teams overall WAR value.
People keep saying it should not go to pre-arb guys but thats just tradition speaking. Those guys are clearly the most valuable commodity in baseball. They are worth the most in trades, are you going to have to give up more to get Miguel Cabrera or Adrian Gonzalez?
It’s Most Valuable Player, not Most Valuable Asset. It should be limited to what happens on the field.
MVP should really mean the BEST player of a year. But if someone want to consider “performance of one’s teammates” a factor, they should also put salary into the MVP discussion. Good point
Dave,
By counting on things beyond a players control aren’t you in part INDIRECTLY counting salary relative to your team. In other words, if your a highly paid player on a team that makes the playoffs, then by definition you got some decent players around you, so your salary is not hurting your teams roster as much. Meanwhile, if your a highly paid dude on a losing team then you salary is probably hurting your team’s ability to improve (ala Barry Bonds). So by counting RBIs and RUNs and such stats you are getting a bit of a kickback for not taking so much money that your team was unable to sign good players to play around you. In know this is not perfect, but it matters. Lastly, you can’t just look at salary because some players fans go out of there way to watch play. Those players bring in excess revenue that would need to be factored in to your equation. By selling more tickets because they have player x on the team (again Bonds), then team would be able to bring in more talent.
all this makes your suggestion hard to work out in any reasonable way.
Dave-
Every time I read one of your articles, I laugh at how many people just don’t get it. See comments like this-
“It’s Most Valuable Player, not Most Valuable Asset. It should be limited to what happens on the field.”
As you pointed out in the article, a player’s salary DIRECTLY impacts what happens on the field. Cheaper players allow for better teammates.
At what point can we just let go of the euphemism “Old School Mentality” and call it what it is- “Flat out ignorance”.
Keep on Rockin’ Dave!
-Logan
Salary has nothing to do with the “value” in an MVP because money isn’t a part of the actual game on the field. Salary is up to the GM, everything after that is on the player.
I also think MVP should be best player of the year. I don’t get the concept of it having anything to do with the other players on a team.
I think Scooter is closest to answering why salary is not considered in MVP voting. Before free agency most players had very similar salaries due to the reserve clause, so player performance was the most important criteria in MVP balloting. The tradition of MVP voters to ignore player salary has continued into the contemporary era, but maybe salary should be considered among other factors.
Now I know all that matters is who finishes 1st in MVP voting and Pujols just won uniamously, but…
UTLEY 8TH?
HOWARD 3RD?
WTF HOW MANY TIMES DO SOME PEOPLE NEED TO BE TOLD SOMETHING?
Dingers man, dingers.
Even if that’s all that happened:
Fielder: 46 HR
Howard: 45 HR
Fielder: .299 BA
Howard: .279 BA
Fielder: 110 BB
Howard: 75 BB (I get that Howard isn’t exactly Kingmaning at the plate, but it doesn’t take a PhD in statistics to figure out who walks more)
Fielder: .412/.602
Howard: .360/.571
Fielder: 54.2 wRAA
Howard: 37.7 wRAA
Fielder: 68.86 RE24
Howard: 43.86 RE24
I know that it doesn’t matter cause the right man won, but 2nd – 10th place votes often matter, too. Voters should care about their whole ballot, not just the first guy.
Pete Abraham took a pot-shot at Yankee fans who were upset that Teix came in above Jeter. After telling us that any arguments that Jeter’s production being more valuable at shortstop ignores what Teix does defensively, he then went with the dig that only Yankee fans would get upset over who came in second in the MVP the year they won the Series.
A) We’re fans of baseball, too. We like to see the proper outcomes in these things.
B) Seriously, where were you when the 2007 AL CYA was announced?
And do people ever actually *SAY* what Teixeira does defensively, or do they just parrot what the big boys in the media say, and then pull the “stat geeks are taking over the world, 2012!” crap when presented with quantified logic?
Somebody put Jeremy Affeldt on their MVP ballot!
I just saw that and immediately came to Fangraphs, where I imagined somebody other than myself might care about the Affeldt Affair.
In an ideal world, would MLB change the guidelines for MVP voting? Certainly people won’t be eager to change the sacred parchments, but this is just getting stupid.
I mean, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but somebody voted for Jeremy Affeldt. Seriously, Affeldt? AFFELDT?!?!?!
That made me want to vomit.
AFFELDT?
Ugh.
And in another source of bitchery (one Phillies fans on here may actually like from me)…
Utley was on 18 ballot.
Therefore, out of 32 voters, Utley was not a top 10 NL player to 14 of them.
You can feel 95% confident that between 39.2% and 71.9% of baseball writers think that Chase Utley is a top 10 caliber player in the NL. This makes me feel awesome about the voting process.
I wonder if the ballot that included Affeldt left Utley off…
Well I found the ballot of the perp (but not his actual name):
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/296576-jeremy-affeldt-is-the-tenth-best-player-in-the-nl
Utley right before Affeldt. A few things can be concluded from this:
1) Jeremy Affeldt helps your team win as much as Chase Utley
2) Defense does not matter
3) 1st basemen are demigods
4) Jeremy Affeldt is the most valuable pitcher in the National League.
Never mind, commenter found the name: Andrew Baggarly. We should obviously do what some MSMers did to Keith Law and encourage loads of harassment.
You’re assuming that ALL voters use their ballots to represent the MVP candidates in order from #1-10 based on their MVP value, versus something like just using the top 5 bote as “serious” candidate votess, and the rest to throw a guy a bone.
I disagree with the process of throwing a guy a bone with your bottom votes, but I also don’t imagine thathe’s really saying Affeldt was a top 10 player in the league.
Much ado about nothing … or in this case, personal preference, or complaints about how voters go about treating their bottom picks.
This article makes Jose Guillen sad.
I know this is going to be blasphemy, but the BBWA messed up the NL MVP award.
There’s more detail (links) on my site (click the link to visit), but here is the gist of the argument:
At first glance, Pujols appears to deserve the MVP. His monstrous bat was second to none (+16 Runs Above Replacement (RAR) compared to Mauer, the AL MVP) and his defense is solid (it has averaged just under +5 RAR per season since 2002). However, Albert Pujols plays first base. Yes, WAR accomodates this with a -12.4 Positional Adjustment to Pujols’ cumulative RAR, but there is something more to be said when the WARs are close and the positions played by two players require significantly different levels of skill.
“But DME,” you say, “Pujols has a +8.4 WAR and Utley has a +7.6 WAR. That’s a chunky +8 RAR difference.” True, in theory, but WAR does not encapsulate every aspect of a player’s value (and no, I’m not talking about Grindiness Per Nine Inning (G/9)). WAR does not encapsulate baserunning skills. Because WAR is derivative of wOBA, which already accounts for SB%, the additional “Baserunning RAR” (BRAR) is calculated by (EQBRR-EQSBR). According to Baseball Prospectus, Chase Utley was the second best baserunner in the majors last season (behind Michael Bourne) and his BRAR was +5.32. Albert Pujols was not even a top 500 baserunner and his BRAR was -0.62.
This makes the difference between Utley and Pujols’ end of season cumulative RAR’s within two runs of each other. Such a difference is pretty marginal. Factor in Pujols’ +13 PA’s and the fact that Chase Utley’s team made it to the World Series (where Utley raked), I would have to tip my hat in favor of Chase Utley, who plays in a much tougher division, for the NL MVP award. By no means is it a travesty that Pujols got the honor. It is a travesty, however, that Utley did not even finish top 5 in NL MVP voting.
This only goes to show that even when the BBWA gets it right, they still manage to get it wrong.
Nice job Eckstein, way to stretch all the numbers as far as you possibly can to get Utley and Pujols close to even (although Utley is still behind Pujols in your metric), and then use something that hadn’t happened when the writers voted (the playoffs) to put him over the top.
Not everything MSM does is faulty, try as you might to prove it so.
The point here is that Utley and Pujols arent far off in value and the fact that Utley was not even top 5 in voting is a travesty.
Furthermore, a 2B that is great is better than a 1B who is slightly better just because good 1B hitters exist more than do good 2B hitters. Its easier to combine Utley with a guy like, oh say, Carlos Delgado, and get quality production, than it is to combine Pujols and Robinson Cano
There’s something to the argument that WAR overstates the difference between Utley and Pujols. Using Utley’s three-year average UZR, for example, gives him an extra half win. Given what MGL’s said about the relevant sample sizes on the metric, I’m not sure that’s entirely unreasonable.
I didn’t look at DME’s link and all, because I’m lazy right now, but I can buy arguments that it’s close enough between the two of them.
Pujols would also get an extra half win if you want to look at it that way.
Not that I disagree with the larger point though, it pains me to see how chronically ignored Utley is every year in the MVP voting.
yeah, Utley is great, but ballots are due before the start of the playoffs.
Dave,
I tend to agree with you that when choosing a MVP, there are so many other factors that tend to be ignored that it can frustrating for people who, like myself, would like to know how the voters define “value”. I even suggested that the whole process was flawed a couple of days ago and I was threatened with banishiment by my fellow baseball fans and was called all kinds of unflattering names. They thought my criticism was of Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols when it was actually a criticism of the process. Therefore, I’ve chosen to go down the low road and from now on, when I hear “And the MVP is…..”, I’m going to be thinking, “And the Player of the Year is…”. No sense in tipping sacred cows.
It hasn’t been considered much because it isn’t fair. The same A-Rod putting up the same numbers while making the same salary becomes more valuable if he played for Yankees than Rays.
If we allow value assessment to be team-dependent, well, ERA suddenly earns more points.
Salary has never been and will never be considered because doing so would automatically exclude the game’s biggest stars in their primes from winning the MVP award, and there’s no way baseball would let that happen.
Why would baseball allow that to happen? I’m not saying that you are supporting that idea.
I just think the whole idea of including “salary” into the MVP voting is ridiculous, unnecessary, and self-limiting. I also think it is, somewhat holding athletes to a standard, we would never hold ourselves to (being very self-sacrificing for the betterment of the whole in a very limited and short career field).
How many MVP type baseball players have a smaller contratc by THEIR choiuce? … and are not just a *victim* of circumstance?
I do think a stat of VOC would very interesting to look at how a GM manages their club, or how a fantasy geek might go about getting “more with less”, and to see which players provide the most “bang for their buck” for a team.
But, another aspect might be the organization that a player is with. For example, if Joey Votto or Adrian Gonzalez was in the Cardinals organization, he might still be in AAA. But since AGonz plays for the Pads, he’s likely a very HIGH VOC guy.
There are so many factors that go into an individual situation, that at times trying to isolate *everything* or accommodate every aspect is, IMO, self-defeating … and missing the big picutre. “Hey look at all these trees, we should be to the forest any time now.”
Why isn’t salary considered for MVP?
Because it’s irrelevant to the award, which is obviously for on-field performance.
A young player making minimum or just above can still win MVP. (Fred Lynn, anyone?)
Now, if you want to invent a different award, and call it Most Wins Above Replacement (Pre-Arb Players), you can get to what you’re driving at.
Salary should never be a part of MVP discussion. We’re not talking ballpark effects, or league effects, or correct evaluation of defense, or position differential. Those things, and others, are part of correct evaluation of the players on-field contribution.
If salary is ever made a consideration of the MVP Award, I’ll start ignoring the MVP award.
It all comes down to semantics. People are arguing for what they think the award should be; Most people are in the “Best Overall Player/Performance” camp. Dave’s proposing an approach based on what the award is (or at least on what the award is named). Why don’t we take monetary value relative to contract (and perhaps team budget) into account for an award called “Most VALUABLE Player?” That would seem a more valid interpretation of the meaning.
If you work on the assumption that the name of the award actually reflects what the award is for (I know that’s a huge assumption- that people actually mean what they say and choose the right words to represent the meaning they’re trying to convey) then Dave’s right. If you don’t want to assume the name actaully reflects what the award is for then you should be arguing over the name of the award.