ROY- Means or Alvarez?

[Larry18]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Vastly different circumstances.

I'd love to see Means win it, as we all would.  But Alvarez is the choice.  

Of course it was but it shows that the age of the recipient wasn’t ever a factor. The award was meant to be merit based on a single season not a prelude to a HOF career. 

[waroriole]

5 hours ago, atomic said:

That is because Fangraphs uses bogus WAR to rate pitchers.  Since he only strikes out 7 batters per 9 innings Means loses WAR from fanagraphs.  As WAR is supposed to be used to tell how well you did and  isn't a predictive tool for future seasons it is a really awful way to judge Wins Above Replacement. 

We don’t often agree but we do here. I hate the way some of these metrics evaluate pitchers. I’ll never be convinced there isn’t some ability in inducing weak contact. 

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, waroriole said:

We don’t often agree but we do here. I hate the way some of these metrics evaluate pitchers. I’ll never be convinced there isn’t some ability in inducing weak contact. 

Mighty hard to find evidence.

[Frobby]

15 minutes ago, BohKnowsBmore said:

Is be interested to know if perhaps a disproportionate share of his inherited runners also came with two outs already recorded, or at first base rather than second/third. 

There used to be a stat on BP that weighted the inherited runners according to bases and outs, but it appears to have disappeared.   

[waroriole]

31 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Mighty hard to find evidence.

It just seems intuitive. There’s usually a thin line between a ball missing a bat and hitting off the end or edge. 

Does fangraphs differentiate between a ball hit off the top of the wall and one hit weakly back to the mound? At least in an FIP sense?

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, waroriole said:

It just seems intuitive. There’s usually a thin line between a ball missing a bat and hitting off the end or edge. 

Does fangraphs differentiate between a ball hit off the top of the wall and one hit weakly back to the mound? At least in an FIP sense?

I agree that it seems intuitive.  That is why it was such a big honking deal when Voros McCracken released his research.

[waroriole]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I agree that it seems intuitive.  That is why it was such a big honking deal when Voros McCracken released his research.

I wonder if exit velocity and ground ball percentage could have been thoroughly looked at then. Also, a study failing to find a correlation isn’t the same as disproving an idea. 

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, waroriole said:

I wonder if exit velocity and ground ball percentage could have been thoroughly looked at then. Also, a study failing to find a correlation isn’t the same as disproving an idea. 

Of course not.  But BABIP is a thing.

This wasn't a case of a guy having an idea, looking at a season's worth of data and the establishment accepting it as gospel.

This was thoroughly vetted.

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Of course not.  But BABIP is a thing.

This wasn't a case of a guy having an idea, looking at a season's worth of data and the establishment accepting it as gospel.

This was thoroughly vetted.

There are better stats now, like xBA, xwOBA.   In both cases Means is above average.   https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/john-means-607644?stats=career-r-pitching-mlb

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

There are better stats now, like xBA, xwOBA.   In both cases Means is above average.   https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/john-means-607644?stats=career-r-pitching-mlb

I'm not saying things haven't advanced.  But the initial research is still valid. 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Too late for this guy to make a run? 

 

[Hallas]

7 hours ago, Il BuonO said:

Lol, ok. Well, I’m so relieved I have your expertise.

Not that I like to make a habit of agreeing with Atomic, but fangraphs WAR is IMO fairly useless now for pitchers because it’s based on FIP and we have loads of batted ball data to quantitatively determine quality of contact.

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Of course not.  But BABIP is a thing.

This wasn't a case of a guy having an idea, looking at a season's worth of data and the establishment accepting it as gospel.

This was thoroughly vetted.

This was thoroughly vetted in a time before statcast batted ball metrics.  Most of the batted ball metrics stabilize after a small number of PAs.

[Philip]

Means has one more start. If he does really well, it might push the needle slightly. I think Alvarez will win, but it would be nice if Means gets a couple first place votes.

Vlad Jr got all the hype, no doubt, but Means has had a better year. At worst, Means should come in a clear second.

[DrungoHazewood]

22 hours ago, SteveA said:

But to me awards are totally different animals.   You are trying to measure ACHIEVEMENT.   And getting an out is better than not getting an out.   Period.   Is it fair?   Maybe not.   But I'll bet every QB who has ever won NFL MVP has benefited from a good offensive line, and good receivers, and a running game, and even a defense that helped give him good field position.   If they decided to give the MVP to a QB whose team went 7-9 and who threw more INTs than TDs becuase the quality  of his receivers and o-line were SO bad that he is actually better than Drew Brees... that would be BS, IMO.

Then we have a philosophical difference.  I'd give the NFL MVP to the best player, not the player who was pretty good and happened to have excellent teammates.  I don't think it's right to give nearly full credit for all outs to the pitcher when we have solid evidence that a lot of that credit should go to his teammates and his good luck.