I'm going to do this in three parts because as I started researching and writing this, it was taking a long time and it will be easier to digest for our readers. I'll first discuss the AL and NL MVPs in one entry, then AL and NL Cy Young's, and finally AL and NL Rookie of the Year. I may comment on Gold Gloves, but honestly the way that is awarded is truly a joke.
A Rant: An Introduction on Differences in Evaluating these Awards
First thing's first though--the awards come down to a couple things: 1) a players stats and 2) the team that player played on. It probably also matters that the voters "like" the player too. In any event, stats are the real key here, and traditionally these are the stats each award looks at:
- For MVP - Batting average, Homeruns, Runs Batted in
- For Cy Young - Earned Run Average, Wins, Strikeouts
- For RoY - Same as above if it's a hitter or pitcher
- For Gold Glove - Manager's perception
Many statheads in the baseball community, myself included, do not agree with using the traditional stats as noted above. For one, there are other stats to consider when evaluating a player. If you know about Moneyball for example it made a great case that on-base percentage is pretty darn important. Also, OPS (on-base plus slugging) is another good stat that isn't one the voters really look at for hitters.
The same arugement can be made of pitchers. Wins are a terrible statistic for assessing how well a pitcher pitched. What if the team's offense doesn't give a great pitcher any run support? Look at Kevin Millwood's 2005 season with Cleveland, he went 9-11 but lead the league in ERA (2.86). He got 3.98 runs/game started which was 39th in the AL for pitchers pitching at least 160 innings. Or vice versa what if the pitcher is terrible but the offense bails them out? Last year a pitcher named Jason Marquis won 14 games (losing 16) and had a 6.02 ERA.
But some of the traditional stats are somewhat biased and do not give as accurate a picture of a players performance. For example, players with lots of homeruns and runs batted tend to be batters in the middle (3rd to 5th) of the lineup. Does that mean a leadoff hitter who has a higher AVG, better OBP but less power is less valuable? Or another example--ballpark effects contribute to the raw stats a player puts up--will we ever get a Cy Young pitcher from Colorado--I doubt it.
How well a team does also matters as well. Usually the logic is this--a player is more valuable as long as his team performs better than an average team (or one at .500). Extra kudos tend to go to players on teams that make the playoffs too. For example, take a look at two AL 2002 MVP candidate's stats and then their team records:
.308 AVG/34 HRs/ 131 RBIs/.862 OPS Team record: 103-59
.300 AVG/57 HRs/142 RBIs/1.015 OPS Team record: 72-90
Who won the MVP? The first player Miguel Tejada who was on the 1st place Oakland A's won it, the other is Alex Rodriguez who put up his best power numbers of his career but was on the last place Texas Rangers. So team matters too and that tends to make things murkier when voting.
So when I consider who's an MVP or the best pitcher in baseball, I use other stats--mainly those of Baseball Prospectus, who have a wide range of their own stats that I personally find very valuable. Below are what I use with their definitions linked:
For hitters: VORP, MLV, and EqA.
For pitchers: VORP, BABIP, PERA, Stuff, and SNLVAR.
I'll explain these stats as I assess each award.
I'll get started with the MVPs in a couple days and am only giving my top three. Until then for our readers, how do you assess the awards?
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