2013 al mvp

p much just re-read - 2012 awards thread

Trout

Trout

i would have been comfortable voting for cabrera like two weeks ago, when offensively his numbers were just so far in front of everyone else that i couldn't justify picking trout on the basis of WAR. the confidence intervals for fielding (and probably baserunning) are wider, so i think it's wise to go with what is more known if that's a possibility. now that trout is closing the gap offensively, and given the fact that their fielding/baserunning numbers confirm the obvious eye test, it's gotta be trout again

Does Trout excel in fielding by measurements other than number of errors (i.e., comparative number of putouts, runners thrown out)?

Likewise with baserunning, is there significance beyond the stolen bases? I know 32 stolen bases is quite good, but he's behind by ninety three points in slugging.

Angel Stadium vs Comerica park factors?

If you add the stolen bases into the slugging computation, Cabrera's ahead by thirty-nine points.

how about non-SB-related baserunning?

Trout will win handily on this board, but I'd still vote for Cabrera. (I would have voted for Trout last year.) If Cabrera doesn't get healthy and/or turn it around, though, and Trout ends up 2.0-3.0 WAR ahead, we're stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again.

Waiting to hear back from a friend--chance I'll be seeing Trout tomorrow night.

Does Trout excel in fielding by measurements other than number of errors (i.e., comparative number of putouts, runners thrown out)?

Likewise with baserunning, is there significance beyond the stolen bases? I know 32 stolen bases is quite good, but he's behind by ninety three points in slugging.

― timellison, Monday, September 9, 2013 1:06 PM (56 minutes ago)

there are a couple of advanced defensive systems -- UZR and DRS, google them -- that essentially measure how many balls the player actually makes a play on relative to his peers, ie they measure range rather than just whether you catch a fly ball or field a ground ball. advanced baserunning stats also take into account how often a player scores from first on a double, scores from second on a single, etc etc. fangraph's metrics have trout as 5.7 runs above average on the in the field and 7.6 runs above average on the basepaths -- about a win and a half.

also, as morbs pointed out, comerica is a hitters park and angel stadium is a pitcher's park, so these are adjusted for in oWAR

whoops actually those runs above average are...above average not above replacement, but same idea

I'll link to any Troutcabrera or Cabreratrout articles I come across, regardless of who's being advocated for, or whether there even is any advocacy. If you can't stand to look at a another such piece for the rest of your mortal life, don't open the links. (What the hell are you even doing on this thread?)

Joe P.: http://joeposnanski.blogspot.ca/2013/09/creative-stat-guy.html#more

SweetSpot: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/40157/cabrera-versus-trout-about-rbis-not-war

By the way, don't be thrown by the SweetSpot URL/title--it's basically (or at least implied) a pro-Trout piece. I read it as, "If you want to argue for Cabrera, this is your best argument--but it's probably your only argument, too."

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/23559937/stock-watch-fish-tales-boost-trout-but-truth-is-miggy-is-still-better

I'll link to any Troutcabrera or Cabreratrout articles I come across, regardless of who's being advocated for, or whether there even is any advocacy. If you can't stand to look at a another such piece for the rest of your mortal life, don't open the links. (What the hell are you even doing on this thread?)

please do because i search for these every day haha

ok that didn't mean heyman pieces

lol

posnanski is completely right about reaching on error, by the way. i'm not sure how it should count w/r/t someone's batting average, but it certainly shouldn't count against their OBP -- they got on base. for some reason i thought wOBA incorporated this idea, but i guess it doesn't. seems like it won't be long until this is fixed in most of the big metrics

becoming clearer and clearer that park effects are still way underappreciated in most corners, even stat nerd corners. that seems to be the biggest factor in their WAR gap this year. and a big factor in a lot of WAR gaps this year. and every year.

everyone's always fine admitting that certain parks are easier to hit in or pitch in than other parks, no one ever really wants to apply that to personal performance (unless coors)

yeah that's pretty otm

trout's AIR* this year is 93, cabrera's is 102

*from b-r, measures league and park effects players have encountered over the course of the season, normalized to 100. below 100 is unfavorable for hitters, above is favorable

though i should mention that both wRC+ (which i think is the best offensive stat there is) and OPS+ both adjust for park factors and have cabrera ahead by a modest but clear amount. oWAR does too but also incorporates base running

"does too" meaning also adjusts for park/league effects

posnanski is completely right about reaching on error

I think only if Trout is somehow more LIKELY to reach base on error (and that the numbers are not just a fluke).

I agree, I'd want some kind of study first before making any changes. But common sense suggests that the batter does have an impact on errors made by infielders. Nobody's rushing throws if Cabrera or Fielder is running to first; if it's Trout or Ellsbury or whoever, I would think you'd get more infield errors over a large sample of games. My guess would be that outfield errors are more randomly distributed.

Posnanski's blog has a lot of posts about this. It's more interesting this year but I would still take Trout in a landslide

Definitely not as common as typical rushed-throw Es, but infielders also screw up when they have a lot of time to make a play -- end up taking an extra step, which can alter the grip and/or release point, etc.

Do stringers note error TYPES?

If you put any stock in WAR, Trout had one of the 20 greatest offensive seasons ever last year, and is better this year.

wtf I woulda thought all iterations of WAR adjusted for parks.

both do, iirc? (not sure about WARP)

if the Angels decided to lock up Trout RIGHT NOW, what would be a fair deal?

$300 M / 10 years

not my scratch tho

an incentive-laced contract that gives tens of millions in bonuses based on winning MVP awards

try HARDER mike, try HARDER

I think Trout's contract should be 100% based on whether or not he can compile a higher WAR than Miguel Cabrera each year. Baseball's first billionaire!

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/9/11/4720170/visualizing-the-al-mvp-race

this is cool

Cliff Corcoran, who does a regular awards round-up on cnnsi.com, has had Cabrera in front most of the way. He's now wavering: "I'm going to give Cabrera one more week before I take him out of the top spot."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130912/awards-watch-lightning-round-2/?sct=mlb_t11_a0

From all the article I'm reading it seems that most of the money is on Trout right now. But that was kinda of the case last year too.

(Perhaps we should have a three way AL Cy Young thread too!)

the money? BBRAA is giving it to Miggy.

I couldn't vote for someone who's as short on mobility as Cabrera has been this year. He'll hit a missile off the fence and round first as a formality.

Incredible that he's been able to hit so well, but MVP over Trout? Hell no.

the money? BBRAA is giving it to Miggy.

It seems every article I've read is saying Trout deserves it but Miggy will have it.

One of the arguments for Cabrera last year might not hold this year....play down the stretch.

Also, the Tigers great record (10-3) without him in the line-up might be a small-sampled, simpler WAR used against him by those who don't fully buy into the sabermetric.

The usual disclaimer: trying to anticipate the voting, not expressing personal opinion here.

Chris Davis has come down quite a bit from his numbers at the break, but:

--Trout and Cabrera aren't going to affect the mad scramble over the final two-three weeks (probably true of Donaldson at this point too, not that he's actually in the running, even though he should be);
--hitting your 50th home run to put your team ahead in an important game gets noticed;
--has a chance to have more games like last night in the remaining weeks (Cano, too, has this opening);
--he'll lead the league in HR, and may end up leading in slugging, runs, RBI, and total bases

Okay--I don't think he actually has much of a chance. But if he finishes great, Trout stays strong (except for walks, he's been in a bit of a mini-slump himself the past week), and Cabrera continues to struggle, I could see Davis helping Trout. He would never take away a Trout vote, but I could see where a few Cabrera voters might switch over to Davis.

(I realize that Davis has a teammate even with him in WAR. But Machado, like Donaldson, just won't be a big factor in the voting, right?)

"Aren't going to affect the mad scramble"--I just meant, is your team out of it/pretty much safe, or do these last 15 games matter? On second thought, I guess I'm jumping the gun by assuming Oakland's safe at this point.

wow - i didn't even realize how well Donaldson was doing until just now.

Very well rounded season: hovering close to .300/.400/.500, good defense, doing it all at third base. Also, if you care about such things:

RISP (150+ PA): .355/.459/.508
Runners on (250+ PA): .366/.457/.573
High Leverage (100+ PA): .394/.443/.646

He's also having a fantastic September so far, coinciding with the A's pulling away.

i remember him getting off to a really hot start, but i never took him seriously for some reason (i probably wasn't too impressed with what he'd done in the minors).

Cliff Corcoran has moved Trout to the top. I always figure most SI writers sit about halfway between old and new, so that may be a signal that a more general shift towards Trout is underway:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130919/awards-watch-mike-trout-miguel-cabrera/?sct=mlb_t1t_a3

Cliff Corcoran used to write for Baseball Prospectus. He was never old-school.

for the IBAs I went

Clayton Kershaw 1
Cliff Lee 2
Jose Fernandez 3
Adam Wainwright 4
Matt Harvey 5

but yeah youd expect them to neglect him a bit bcz of the RoY

i didn't notice til after the season just how well cliff lee pitched. quietstorm.

I was curious about joining the IBWAA, but didn't know how regularly you were expected to write about baseball. I post something baseball-related on my site once a year--used to be more often, now it's even less.

Well, it was a little less exclusive than I imagined. You need a credit card. Or a PayPal account. That and $20 and you're in for life. Think I'm too late to vote for this year's awards, though.

I want to see if I can get onto the Nobel committee now--willing to pay up to $25.

your AL RoY

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/1EHnFIC5VFhgxMwZF37uOw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusmlbexperts/wilmyershead.jpg

I don't think Cy Young threads were started...203-93 for Scherzer over Darvish; 29 out of 30 first-place votes for Kershaw, other one to Wainwright.

ok who voted for wainwright

i want their justification to be that he had a better xfip

Whoever it is, he's going to be asked to explain himself a lot over the next couple of weeks.

Kershaw -- ERA (over a full run lower), K, ERA+ (194-123), WHIP, H/9 (two fewer per nine), HR/9, WAR (7.8-6.2)
Wainwright -- W, W%, IP (by 5), BB/9, K/BB

Wainwright's team had a better record, and Wainwright was supported by almost a full run per game more.

Wainwright took one category I consider important, K/BB, so it maybe wasn't quite as lopsided as I initially thought. But Kershaw took all the other important ones, usually by huge margins.

anthony witrado of the sporting news doesn't vote for darvish at all, i do not like anthony witrado of the sporting news

also harvey deserved more pts

This is funny. Wainwright's first-place vote came from a Cincinnati writer. Wainwright against the Reds this year:

1-3, 7.77 ERA, 22 IP, 29 H, 7 BB, 18 K.

Apparently it was a vote of gratitude.

here's the IBA AL Cy vote:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22226

I put Iwakuma first, followed by Sale and Scherzer.

http://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcgq4hsyOj1qa7bh4o1_500.jpg

haha

Interested in your reasoning, Morbius.

ERA: Iwakuma (2.66 - 2.90)
IP: Iwakuma (219 - 214)
ERA+: Scherzer (145 - 138)
WHIP: Scherzer (0.970 - 1.006)
H/9: Scherzer (6.4 - 7.3)
HR/9: Scherzer (0.8 - 1.0)
BB/9: Iwakuma (1.7 - 2.4)
K/9: Scherzer (10.1 - 7.6)
K/BB: Iwakuma (4.40 - 4.29)
Quality Starts: Scherzer (25/32 - 23/33)
Game Score: Scherzer (62.8 - 60.5)
WAR: Iwakuma (7.0 - 6.7)

Definitely close--enough so that I went to Quality Starts and Game Score--but I don't see any strong rationale for Iwakuma.

@Max_Scherzer
In the words of T.O. #GeturPopcornReady http//:pic.twitter.com/NJ0Yv71hTc

(Weird)

http://pic.twitter.com/NJ0Yv71hTc

clemenza:

WAR

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz125/sstander/StarshipTroopers-WAR.png

give war a chance

morbs you are bref > fangraphs then? the latter had iwakuma 12th in war, just behind doug fister

They're close--it's a defensible vote. I'm not clear why Iwakuma ends up ahead in WAR--Scherzer has the better ERA+ (which is park-adjusted, right?), the better WHIP, and the better strikeout and home run rates, while K/BB is basically a wash--but I do prefer Baseball Reference, which is based more on what actually happened than what theoretically should have happened. I'd be reluctant to give things like FIP and BaBIP much weight in awards voting--in planning for next year, I'd pay lots of attention to them, but not for awards.

I noticed something odd in two or three Cy Young columns I read. Pitcher wins have become so anathema to some writers that, far from giving Scherzer undue credit for his W-L record (which indeed was exaggerated somewhat by his run support), they almost hold it against him. The desire to see through his W-L record was so strong that there seemed to be a vague sense of disappointment to find lots of other stats behind the record that indicated he was the best pitcher in the league.

yeah, i prefer results to what Fangraphs does.

Neyer made the counterargument yesterday. Really, I don't know.

Neyer's was one of the columns I had in mind--it felt like he was trying to find someone other than Scherzer to vote for (and said he would have voted for Sanchez if he'd pitched more innings), but he wasn't as pronounced as a couple of others I read. I should have made note of them, but I didn't. In the end, Neyer does come to the conclusion that Scherzer should be #1. It's basically a coin flip, I think, slight edge to Scherzer.

A couple of things about Kershaw: now 12th in career Cy Young share, can move into the Top 10 with a good showing next year; the fourth pitcher ever with a 1st-2nd-1st run.

donaldson got a lot more support than i'd thought

also lol @ rick hummel of the stl post-dispatch voting for yadi and carpenter before mccutchen

always a few who look like they had no idea their votes would be public

http://bbwaa.com/13-al-mvp/

trout got a 7th place vote

classic stark, smh

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9967744/celebrating-mvp-winners-miguel-cabrera-andrew-mccutchen

Why anyone on earth should care about career Cy share, i dunno.

Awards suck.

"Care"? You have this really weird habit of confusing "find interesting" with "care." I don't see how Cy Young share is any more or less interesting than the stuff you post about (and therefore presumably "care" about). We have awards threads, people post, people are interested in awards, it logically follows that a cumulative measure of an award would be of interest.

Top 12 right now: Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, Carlton, Pedro, Seaver, Palmer, Halladay, Glavine, Koufax, Kershaw. Quite a bogus group of pitchers.

(Missed Santana at #11.)

across 50+ years, the BBRAA most liked the dozen pitchers who were close to the best in peak value. Interesting!

Top 12 right now: Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, Carlton, Pedro, Seaver, Palmer, Halladay, Glavine, Koufax, Kershaw. Quite a bogus group of pitchers.

this now has me wanting to sit down and actually rank these guys careers. i'd probably toss Ryan, Gibson and another Johnson in there too.

Gibson'very close to the top 12 in Cy Young share.

(xpost) Fine. Here's what kills me, though, Morbius. You're constantly arbitrating what is and isn't interesting, what is and isn't pertinent to a thread, what is and isn't an acceptable level of engagement, etc., etc. If I come on a baseball thread and plead ignorance about something because I haven't been paying attention, you feel it's important to jump on and call me on that. But it's apparently okay for you to go on a pop-music thread and plead ignorance about something because you no longer pay attention--that's acceptable.

It's just really tiresome.

"Gibson's"

sorry. i don't claim to be a music fan.

you guys should just move in together already

I've never accused you of not paying attention to awards points, clem

Never heard of Kolten Wong before

yes, we know you are as familiar with the NL as you are foreign films. He's one of their best prospects after Oscar Taveras.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, October 28, 2013 7:21 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what it means is move to Boston, clem, you can probly watch the meaningful part of the game then

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:31 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are other ways, like actually reading about him during the season --- would work even more for Matt Carpenter, you can even see video and stuff.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, October 28, 2013 10:07 AM (2 weeks ago)

Things like that. One might just as easily say there are other ways to keep up with pop music--you can see video and stuff, buy CDs, etc. Or you can choose not to, because you're no longer as interested as you once were--I can figure that out, and would never feel the need to tell you how to keep up when you plead ignorance.

Anyway, I'm harping. But: it's been well established that I'm interested in awards, the HOF, benchmarks (including old-fashioned ones), Triple Crowns, no-hitters, all the stupid things you've outgrown. You don't need to call attention to this anymore.

hey. lets not lose lose sight of the most important piece of hardware: the Rolaids Relief Man Award.

Didn't even realize it was still around. And evolving, sort of: "...four points for a tough save (entering the game with the tying run on base), three points for a save, two points for a win, loss of two points for a loss, and a loss of two points for a blown save." Inaugural AL winner, Bill Campbell, was 17-5; of the first two NL winners, one was a Rawley, the other a Rollie.

So who were the best relievers this year by smartstats?

I would assume Kimbrel and Koji for anything strictly rate-based. Here's Fangraphs' WAR leaders for relief pitchers:

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2013&month=0&season1=2013&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=19,d

Can't find a Baseball Reference list exclusively for relief pitchers.

I used to do this too: who helped their cause, who hurt theirs, and who treaded water?

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/42364/five-guys-who-enhanced-hall-case-in-2013

Can't argue with any of those five picks. For who hurt theirs, Sabathia and--unless you think he was already a lock, which may be true--Halladay. Treading water, probably a number of people. Verlander would be one.

Verlander had a 5.2 fWAR and a 4.6 bWAR this year -- a great year for just about any other pitcher. So he helped his cause, assuming he gets back to being VERLANDER! for a few more years.

Treading water only in the context of himself, yes.

2005-12: 16-8, 3.40, 1.173 WHIP, 4.5 WAR
2013: 13-12, 3.46, 1.315 WHIP, 4.6 WAR

In ERA and WAR, almost identical. (I included his cup of coffee in 2005 because...that makes the numbers work even better!) I think he could probably even go in doing what he did last year for another 7-8 seasons--he's already got the highlights of a HOF career (all three major awards, the no-hitters), he just needs to fill out the bulk. In that sense, I totally agree--years like last year help someone like Verlander.

From David Schoenfield's "Fourteen Big Questions for 2014":

While you can come up with a dozen legitimate MVP candidates in the National League, AL honors will almost surely go to Trout or Cabrera, barring a miracle Mariners run to the AL West title or something like that.

I don't agree with that at all. Surprise candidates always emerge. Even last year, whether they deserved to or not, both Chris Davis and Josh Donaldson got over 50% of the available points, and a big September (as opposed to a very poor one) might have been enough for Davis to sneak in.

Favorites, sure. "Almost surely," don't agree.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/45422/fourteen-big-questions-for-2014