Sorting out the American League MVP Race

20 years ago it was easy to pick an MVP. You figured out who had the best combination of batting average, home runs, and RBIs on a team that competed for the playoffs and you give it to him. Now, with the advent of multiple advanced metrics, the choices actually become tougher. What do you value the most? wOBA, runs created, WPA, WAR? And if you choose WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which WAR do you pick—FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) or Baseball-Reference WAR (bWAR)? Or something else all together? Well let’s take a look at the American League MVP field as we reach the end of August to see my top candidates. I’ll give my order at the end, so you’ll have to read through to find out who my top 10 are:  

Jose Bautista is the best hitter in the AL--but is he the MVP (CBC)

Jose Bautista: This one is the toughest for most people to comprehend (including me, at first). Bautista leads the American League in bWAR and fWAR. He is tied for the Major League lead in home runs (38) and is first in OBP (.453), SLG (.645), runs created (130), walks (107), and wOBA (.457). And before you go and say that a guy can’t be an MVP for a team that has no chance of going to the playoffs, think about this: the Blue Jays right now are a .500 team and how much worse would they be if they didn’t have Bautista? And if the Blue Jays played in any other division, they may be looking towards the playoffs with Bautista running away with the award. Oh, and he’s the best player in baseball in 2011.

Justin Verlander: Like Bautista, Verlander suffers from another old-school idea that pitchers can’t be MVPs. Usually I agree, but Verlander may be an exception to the rule. He leads the league in wins (20), W/L (.800), starts (29), IP (215.2), K (218), WHIP (0.904), H/9 (6.1), and has a sparkling ERA (2.38), FIP (2.84) and xFIP (3.03). He leads all pitchers in both bWAR and fWAR and is fifth in fWAR and second in bWAR. And where would the Tigers be without Verlander? The Yankees pitching after CC Sabathia is not great but the same is true of the Tigers who don’t have the same peripheral team as Verlander has this season.

Curtis Granderson: As a Yankee fan, the Grandy Man is a tough candidate to root against. Last year he was a frustrating player to have on your team as he not only struggled mightily against lefties, but you felt like he should be a better player overall. Well a trip to the swing doctor, Kevin Long, during a particularly bad stretch last August has turned him around and the results cannot be better. He already has 38 home runs (tied for first), 122 runs (top by far), and 107 RBI (most despite hitting 2nd quite a bit this season) tops his counting stats and with 24 stolen bases, he has a great chance of having a 30-30 season. His batting average (.276) and strikeout rate (24.1%) are not pretty for most but the one thing that would stop Granderson from winning the award may be his poor defense this year by most advanced metrics (as a Yankee fan, I can back that up at times as his terrible jumps and routes to the ball, combined with his poor arm make him tough to watch at times out there). But nothing he does surprises A-Rod anymore.

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View from the Seats: A's at Yankees

Back at the big ballpark in the Bronx tonight on a beautiful night for baseball to see the New York Yankees host the Oakland Athletics. Tonight I'm sitting in Main 231, row 3.

The Yankees got down early in this one, but great defense and a few big hits have given them a 2-1 lead in the 7th.

CC Sabathia has been hit hard but the only big hit off of him was a solo bomb by Coco Crisp. He's also been helped out by some nice defense. The A's speedy second baseman Weeks hit one into the rightcenter gap to leadoff an inning but a nice relay from Granderson to Cano to Nunez got Weeks at 3rd. The most amazing part of that play was seeing the birthday boy, Brett Gardner, SPRINT in from leftfield to back up third base in case of an overthrow. He ran so fast he beat Sabathia there.

Nick Swisher's homerun gave the Yankees the lead in the bottom of the 6th and CC and the Yankees bullpen will try to hold them here. That's tonight's report from a packed house in the Bronx.

-Andrew

What could have been........

There is a special type of sports discussion that revolves around what could have been IF a player did not get injured. One of the greatest examples is Mickey Mantle. His infamous injury suffered by getting his cleats stuck in a drain that altered his career. Mantle was strong and fast and not only the star of the future for the Yankees BUT a player with a combination of power and speed that had never been seen before. This injury changed a lot of that, as Mantle was never the same. At least his brilliant talent was seen. In the case of 7 foot 3 inch Arvida Sabonis the Lithuanian Center who played several years for the Soviet Union until the USSR crumbled, the American sports fan got to see a tiny sliver of his talent before injuries hampered his accomplishments (most notably in the 1992 Olympics where the Lithuania team won Bronze). He also played several seasons for the Portland Trailblazers, after many injuries, and definetely past his prime.

My friend sent me the link to the Grantland story by Jonathan Abrams on Arvidas Sabonis: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6867508/arvydas-sabonis-long-strange-trip

Perhaps Ted sent it to me because he remembers I used to proudly wear my Lithuania tie dye shirt in our college years (you remember the Grateful Dead helped sponsor the team). You can still buy the t-shirt here:
http://skullman.com/
The article is good and brings back the discussions of what could have been if players did not have injuries that altered their career forever. Any basketball fan should read it for the many quotes from Bill Walton...... entertaining even though often kooky.

Walton of course being one of the best examples of a tremendous talent who dealt with injuries preventing him form having a long elite career.

Other examples that come to mind are : Houston Astros pitcher J.R. Richard, let's hope Stephen Strasburg recovers, the recent retirement of Yao Ming, Bo Jackson, Donnie Baseball fits in here since he never got to play in a World Series game, etc.

If I come up with some more examples I will add them to the comments.

"Slow News Day": the Batting Stance Guy riffs on MLB reporters and broadcasters

With many thanks to this tip from The Big Lead, we bring you "Slow News Day," which is a brilliant and hilarious riff by the "Batting Stance Guy" on various MLB broadcasters and reporters:



My favorite is definitely Tim Kurkjian, but I also really enjoyed his impressions of Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal, Craig Sager, and Pedro Gomez.  Peter Gammons and Jon Heyman are okay too, but not his best efforts.  And I'm not sure Rex Hudler belongs in this group, although that sentiment might be due to my geographical bias and to be fair, he is ripe for mocking.

In general, though, the most impressive aspect of this clip is his ability to pick up on the little things (Olney's constant references to two dozen media sources, the camera view on Rosenthal, Sager's habit of looking at everything but the interviewee and the audience, etc.) that will make every baseball fan nod their head and laugh.  Good stuff.

AFC East Radio Preview

As most of you know I have a segment on 89.5 FM every Sunday. Here's the show for this week, previewing the AFC East...

Some Quick Yankees Thoughts

I don't have a lot of time to blog and I hate it. I love blogging, but unfortunately it doesn't pay the bills. So it's a rare occasion I can sit back and blog. But watching the Yankees beat up on the White Sox tonight made me feel like it was time for a post. A bunch of short-sweet thoughts:

It's not just Tex Messages for the Yankees offense (Reuters)

Alex O wrote a post yesterday which said "why not the Yankees?" And I've been meaning to write that for weeks. Here's the American League in my mind: the Red Sox, the Yankees, and everyone else. 

And if you think the Yankees have some pitching questions, check out the rest of the American League:

• The Red Sox have Josh Beckett and Jon Lester and then a whole lot of question marks (and Josh Beckett, in my mind, still has to be a question mark because of his past health issues). 
• The Texas Rangers made some great bullpen moves, but the rotation is unintimidating--at best (there is no Cliff Lee). The White Sox have a really good rotation on paper but they've all shown to be less than stellar.
• Between the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians, there is maybe 3 top-line starters combined--and that's including the acquisition of Ubaldo Jiminez
• The Tampa Bay Rays have David Price and a revived James Shields and the Angels have Jered Weaver and Dan Haren--and that's about all that's reliable between those teams.
• So in the end, I'll take CC Sabathia and X, especially if that X is a dealing Bartolo Colon (I can't believe I'm saying that). This is not the National League with deep pitching staffs in Atlanta, Philly, San Fran, and Los Angeles. It's not great by any means, but I'll take CC and The Misfits.

The Yankees lead the Majors with a +168 run differential. The Red Sox at +142, Phillies at +118, and Rangers at +88 are the only teams at more than +50 in all of baseball. The Yankees are only one down in the division and could go up 8 in the Wild Card if the Angels score holds tonight. Again, why not them?

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AAA credit rating trivia and the final third of MLB 2011

What 17 countries have AAA credit rating? I‘ll give you two: The USA and The Isle of Man (80k residents on an island in between Scotland and Ireland)

Enough about credit ratings, let's talk baseball!

Clearly the Yankees management did not want to overpay for talent at the trade deadline. The decision kept us wondering since many in Yankeesland would love to see Jesus Montero given a shot in the bigs. I thought maybe they were keeping him buried to keep his trade value high? He will definitely come up when rosters are expanded, but not soon enough for many Yanks fans frustrated by Jorgie at DH and Martin’s offensive numbers.

Clearly Montero would be an offensive upgrade over the Cisco kid as a back-up catcher. I think it would be wise to give the kid a shot and give him some time behind the dish and at DH. So far at least the pinstripe brass begs to differ.

Cashman and co. have stuck to the status quo roster since they have seen some additions by rehabilitation and more soon. Chavez is back, A-Rod will be back soon once he is done frolicking with Cameron Diaz and is feeling 100%. Soriano is back, and for now they have 6 starters. Any sane Yankees fan would have signed up for 107 games into the season and only 1 game in back of the Sawx, and a seven game cushion in the wild-card.

Unless Cashman was lying, he recently said he is confident in the team he has. He was ok with not making any moves at the trade deadline. Do you think the Yankees are good enough to win the World Series? Why not? If A-Rod comes back and can heat up along with Freddy and Colon continuing to mystify then the possibility is there for a good run. The Rangers bullpen got a lot better at the deadline but there is no Cliff Lee to shut down Yankee bats in the playoffs.

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