Comments on: Rangers MVP

By: Simmy

Simmy — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:04:26 +0000

Peter you are personally invested in Ichiro? I want a piece of that! Just kidding.

I love WPA/LI for analyzing who has produced relative to the importance of the situation, but for those of us who believe most of how much success is produced in high versus low leverage situations is due more to luck than repeatable skill, where does that leave us?
For example I think Teixeira hit a 0.00 wpa homer the other day in the blowout loss to Washington.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:18:43 +0000

What about steals? Kinsler is 25/26, Hamilton 7/7, and Bradley 4/3. Is there any way to quantify the effect of Kinsler’s excellent success in this area on his offense, and is it conceivable that the steals make up .4 wins?

I may have a personal investment in thinking that excellent performance in stolen bases should matter, as I like to think that Ichiro’s performance in this regard at least partially makes up for his power outage.

By: Dave Cameron

Dave Cameron — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:28:30 +0000

I didn’t do a replacement level adjustment, so these are wins compared to average. A +3 wins over average for a full year is close to +5 wins above replacement, which is certainly an all-star a borderline MVP candidate.

By: Sky

Sky — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:39:58 +0000

Mitch, Dave was addressing who’s actually been most valuable, not who the writers would vote for.

JM, you’ll get higher numbers if you do the same thing for names like Grady Sizemore, Alex Rodriguez, and Joe Mauer.

By: JMHawkins

JMHawkins — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:21:38 +0000

Hmmm, if Hamilton and Bradley are at +1.9 wins 60% of the way through, that projects out to just over +3 wins for the entire season. Seems like the league MVP ought to be a lot higher than that.

By: Mitch W

Mitch W — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:06:46 +0000

Nice analysis. Although, I guess you could just use a single metric like VORP that will factor in the position played (but not defense, but I don’t think D plays a big role in MVP voting)-

Kinsler- 47.8 VORP
Bradley- 41.2
Hamilton- 38.8

Looks like Kinsler gets the nod based on how much he produces at the 2B position, and how valuable he is in the sense that it would be toughest for the team to replace him.

By: Sky

Sky — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:36:48 +0000

Good stuff. It’s nice to see someone not ignore Kinsler’s fielding issues.

I didn’t realize Hamilton was so bad in center. As for June 25, Justin’s combined STATS and BIS zone rating numbers showed him as just about average. Interesting.

Bradley has actually played 165 games in the corner outfield. I don’t know what his fielding numbers have been like this year, but he’s been at least average in the past (and can handle center when healthy). He probably deserves a little more credit defensively than he gets with a full DH penalty. But he probably also deserves a little less credit when you consider playing time — he’s had more than 100 fewer PAs than Kinsler, which matters in a replacement-level analysis.

By: mattymatty

mattymatty — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:32:32 +0000

“However, it’s hard to argue that your the most valuable player in the league if you aren’t the most valuable player on your own team…”

That didn’t stop the voters from electing Jimmy Rollins last year, who was probably the third (but maybe the second) best player on his team.