MVP Watch

   August 25, 2009  12 Comments on MVP Watch  Posted in Baseball

I have decided to post a MVP Watch each week on Tuesday. This first post will show the stats from when I wrote this post (14 August) until 24 August. Each week I recap their week using these stats: Hits/HRs/SB/BA/OBP/SLG/R/K/BB/Team Record for Week.

Why would I use team record for the week? Well it seems like something that should be tossed in there. This will give us the chance to discuss who had the better week and maybe even rank who is leading the race. I chose five players from each league, based mainly on the comments. For the NL: Pujols, H-Ram, Fielder, Braun, Howard (I chose him because he seems to light up in September, but Victorino or Utley should probably be the Phillies representative for this discussion). In the AL: Mauer, Texeira, Morneau, Abreau, and Crawford.

NL
Pujols: 7/2/1/.200/.391/.400/418/10/8-2
H-Ram: 17/2/1/.459/.512/.703/4/8/3/4-5
Fielder: 8/4/0/.242/.350/.606/5/9/6/4-5
Braun: 11/3/3/.314/.429/.629/8/0/6/4-5
Howard: 10/5/0/.270/.341/.703/9/9/4/7-2

AL
Mauer: 18/4/2/.450/.542/.775/9/2/8/6-4
Texeira: 10/2/0/.286/.390/.514/6/5/5/6-3
Morneau: 4/0/0/.308/.400/.385/3/2/2/6-4 He only played in 4 games during that stretch.
Abreu: 12/2/2/.293/.356/.463/8/13/4/6-4
Crawford: 14/0/1/.378/.410/.568/5/6/2/6-3

Rank (I came up with by taking the categories you led in and assigning points (1-5, leader gets 5 points, etc…I then totaled up the scores, very scientific–Offord, you should come up with something better for me.)

NL
Braun: 37
H-Ram: 34
Howard: 31
Pujols: 26
Fielder: 23

AL
Mauer: 47
Crawford: 30
Texeira: 27
Abreu: 27
Morneau: 19

Wow, this post took me forever to write. Obviously at this point Morneau is at a huge disadvantage. Before anyone says anything, I did keep track of ABs as well (I made a spreadsheet for this process). Joe Mauer had the second most ABs in that time span behind Bobby Abreu, so his being a catcher/DH did not really come into play.

Anyways, let’s argue some more in the comments.

**UPDATE**
I had to change a few guys OBP because I did not add in Hit By Pitch, it only changed a couple guys. I was using the spreadsheet I created for our softball league, but thanks to WHYGAVS, I now know to use baseball-reference game logs and just highlight the dates I want…much easier.

Author: Ngewo

12 thoughts on “MVP Watch”

  1. GOod stuff. Last year I had a daily tracker for my top 5-10 MVP candidates in each league, mainly the AL though. I was 100% convinced it was Morneau last year, and that was obviously wrong. Youkalis was my second choice, and he wasn’t even MVP of his team. So, I’m glad you decided to do it this year…I’m going to stick with my guy Crawford for now. GO RAYS!

  2. I remember that last year, and it really did seem like Morneau or Youk would win it, but if you look at D-Ped’s numbers, they really did compare with those guys (especially when you factor in his position…). That is the reason something like VORP is advantageous at certain times. But that is neither here nor there.

  3. It just seemed like every single game, since I look at the box score of every game every day, Morneau had at least 1 rbi and helped his team as much as possible down the stretch to almost make the playoffs. Maybe him winning won already had something to do with it.

  4. I would imagine that comes into some writers minds. Like I said before, many stat geeks argued for Morneau or A-Rod. How close was the voting?

  5. Pedroia 317 (16 1st place)
    Morneau 257 (7 1st place)
    Youkilis 201
    Mauer 188

    So really even that close. Someone actually voted Franciso Rodriguez as 1st place MVP. Yea, because the Angels won all those games because of him…

  7. Haha, I remember laughing when people tossed his name around (K-Rod). Proof that closers are not really as uber-valuable as people make them out to be. Angels lose him, pitching staff gets worse, yet still winning…

    Obviously that does not mean a closer is not important, but there is no way someone like BJ Ryan should get a ridiculous contract. But that is a different conversation…

    Amazing that the top 4 players came from two teams. So much for the theory of getting hurt by someone on your own team…

  8. Yea seriously. The whole “taking votes away” is definitely over exaggerated. Last note for the day…someone on ESPN was suggesting Jeter for MVP. If you look at his stats vs. Pedroia’s last year, they are fairly similar. Just throwing it out there…

  9. The thing to remember is that Pedroia hit a lot of doubles (I think 54), Jeter will most likely not hit 32 more doubles this season. Not saying that was all that Pedroia had going for him, but that really helped his cause. Also, he was second in MVP voting a few years back, and had a better season than he is now.

    That being said, he did finish second before, and has never won the MVP. If the Yankees reclaim their throne in the AL East, most voters would be probably be hard pressed to ignore Tex or Jeter. And I could see him winning the “oh my god, this guy has never won the MVP? he gets my vote!”

    That being said, in my humble opinion, the season Mauer is having should be rewarded. He would need a monumental collapse. Like forgetting how to hit the baseball in all of September. A nice 0-98 slump to make me believe he is not deserving.

  10. It’s true that most things I’ve read want Mauer to win and think he will. It is a shame that Jeter hasn’t won one, but I’m sure he feels okay with all the WS Trophies.

    So for the sake of our sanity, for now let’s just assume Mauer will win unless, like you said, he monumentally collapses.

  12. Not sure which to post on now, but all of the award races have become a lot tighter as of late. In the NL, Wainwright is on fire and making a case to unseat Lincecum; Fielder is quietly catching Pujols; and Randy Wells has fallen off while McCutchen, Garrett Jones, Chris Coghlan, and Colby Rasmus have been putting up big numbers. In the AL, Kendry Morales has been on fire and making a case for himself in the MVP race while Crawford, Mauer and Morneau have been struggling; Halladay has fallen off the map while Greinke has place himself back on it as the front runner; and Gordon Beckham has dropped his average like 60 points in the last few weeks. So, I’d say we’re back at square one with this…Here is my top 3 in order for each category with 1 month to go:

    NL
    MVP: Pujols, Fielder, HanRam
    CY YOUNG: Wainwright, Lincecum, Carpenter
    ROOKIE: Happ, McCutchen, Hanson

    AL
    MVP: Mauer, Teixeira, Morales
    CY YOUNG: Greinke, Verlander, Halladay (with Felix and CC close behind)
    ROOKIE: Niemann, Andrus, Beckham (with Bailey very deserving but no chance of winning)

    I know pitchers rarely win ROY, but they just seem far and away the best in each league so far. We’ll see.

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