Postseason awards?

[Pedro Cerrano]

I'm also curious to see a response to this post and the one above it to Mackus.

Sorry if this seems like I'm being a jerk or whatever, I just think I made some good points, and would like to see them being challenged by the other side.

I've got an easy answer. If it was simply about concrete numbers, you could plug them into a formula and arrive at your answer.

Instead, it's a subjective voting system. Simply saying Player A produces X numbers more than Player B and is therefore definitely the more valuable player is flawed logic -- there are many more extrinsic factors to be taken into account.

[sangell2007]

The parks thing I will comment on, since it's new. The rest I'm not going to bother with for the seventh time...as I said a few posts ago on this thread, I am tired of arguing a point that clearly neither of us are going to change our minds on, no matter how "flabbergasted" one of us gets. Except to say once again that I think it is very narrow-minded to look only to stats to determine who is "most valuable." TejadaTheyFall's post above mine basically sums up my thoughts.

Anyway, parks. In a broad sense, I view the MVP race as being between 16 guys in the NL and 14 in the AL. The most valuable players for each team. I realize that many times, teams have more than one respectable candidate and certainly doesn't upset me to see, say, two Yankees ahead of the Royals in the voting.

So with that broad view in mind, I judge the guys as they relate to their team. What did Jimmy Rollins do for hte Phillies? What did Matt Holliday do for the Rockies? What did David Wright do for the Mets? What did Hanley Ramirez do for the Marlins? The whole Rockies team plays in Coors Field. If I think that Matt Holliday meant more to his team's success than David Wright did to his, it has nothing to do with one playing in Coors and one playing in Shea.

It's a Most Valuable Player award. Not Most Outstanding Player. Subjectivity is unavoidable in determining who is most valuable to his team, and I think you have to look at it in terms of the player as they affected their team and not the player as they stack up to players on other teams.

[mweb]

I've got an easy answer. If it was simply about concrete numbers, you could plug them into a formula and arrive at your answer.

Instead, it's a subjective voting system. Simply saying Player A produces X numbers more than Player B and is therefore definitely the more valuable player is flawed logic -- there are many more extrinsic factors to be taken into account.

I was talking about why it should matter what park a guy plays in.

No one is doing what you're saying, I'm mostly doing that, but do allow for some leeway for these other factors. But the stats do make up the vast majority of the equation. They tell you almost exactly what a player has produced on the field, and it's not like football where a guys numbers might be not come close to telling the whole story. So sure, leadership and team's performance comes into play, but leadership is very hard to guage, and we'd mostly just be making assumptions on that. But I would be willing to give a guy some extra credit if he's supposedly a great leader. And I'm willing to give some extra credit for performance of the team. But Rollins needs a lot of extra credit to match Wright, and Holliday needs a decent amount as well. Unless one is only willing to give the MVP award to a guy on a playoff team, I don't see any good reasons to bridge that sizable gap.

[sangell2007]

I was talking about why it should matter what park a guy plays in.

No one is doing what you're saying, I'm mostly doing that, but do allow for some leeway for these other factors. But the stats do make up the vast majority of the equation. They tell you almost exactly what a player has produced on the field, and it's not like football where a guys numbers might be not come close to telling the whole story. So sure, leadership and team's performance comes into play, but leadership is very hard to guage, and we'd mostly just be making assumptions on that. But I would be willing to give a guy some extra credit if he's supposedly a great leader. And I'm willing to give some extra credit for performance of the team. But Rollins needs a lot of extra credit to match Wright, and Holliday needs a decent amount as well. Unless one is only willing to give the MVP award to a guy on a playoff team, I don't see any good reasons to bridge that sizable gap.

As an aside, I've always thought of it the other way around. Baseball seems so much more poetic...football is cut and dry, numbers numbers numbers.

I guess we can't agree on anything today, can we bud;)

[mweb]

The parks thing I will comment on, since it's new. The rest I'm not going to bother with for the seventh time...as I said a few posts ago on this thread, I am tired of arguing a point that clearly neither of us are going to change our minds on, no matter how "flabbergasted" one of us gets. Except to say once again that I think it is very narrow-minded to look only to stats to determine who is "most valuable." TejadaTheyFall's post above mine basically sums up my thoughts.

Anyway, parks. In a broad sense, I view the MVP race as being between 16 guys in the NL and 14 in the AL. The most valuable players for each team. I realize that many times, teams have more than one respectable candidate and certainly doesn't upset me to see, say, two Yankees ahead of the Royals in the voting.

So with that broad view in mind, I judge the guys as they relate to their team. What did Jimmy Rollins do for hte Phillies? What did Matt Holliday do for the Rockies? What did David Wright do for the Mets? What did Hanley Ramirez do for the Marlins? The whole Rockies team plays in Coors Field. If I think that Matt Holliday meant more to his team's success than David Wright did to his, it has nothing to do with one playing in Coors and one playing in Shea.

It's a Most Valuable Player award. Not Most Outstanding Player. Subjectivity is unavoidable in determining who is most valuable to his team, and I think you have to look at it in terms of the player as they affected their team and not the player as they stack up to players on other teams.

Well in all 7 times, you never(at least not that I saw) responded to my point that a preseason prediction, if it helps at all, should help early in the year, not late in the year. And again, unless I've missed it, you haven't shown how Rollins is a good leader besides predicting his team would win the division. I guess he wouldn't get the extra credit if the Mets didn't choke?

And you said you didn't know if the numbers showed Rollins was the best offensive player on his team, so I showed them to you, thus I would assume that's new info for you.

Concerning the parks, I guess you disagree that if player A produces 10% of runs scored in his games, he would then be more valuable than player B who produces 8% of runs scored in his games, even though both players produced the same amount of runs? Numbers made up.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Yea I mean I don't want to take anything away from Matt Holliday -- I think he's an incredible baseball player and I'd take him on my team any day.

And we can't forget that Rollins also had the luxury of playing his home games in a very generous HR park -- but his % of home HR versus away is much closer to 50/50 than Hollidays. Rollins was also able to triple 11 times there. The general rule is that the better a park is for HR the harder it is to hit triples.

There are two stats that stand out to me which sell me on Rollins -- his RBI and his runs scored.

139 runs scored is a product of a) getting on base and b) making things happen once you get on as evidenced by his 41 SB.

Secondly is RBI. For the most part Rollins hit leadoff htis year. I know he batted 3rd for a bit when Utley went down but the fact of the matter is he was able to amass close to 100 RBI hitting behind people like Dobbs, Ruiz, Helms and the freaking pitcher! I'd guess that he didn't have that many RBI chances and when he did, he generally came though.

Holliday got to bat behind Kaz Matsui, Willy Taveras (both who had career years) and Troy Tulowitzki (likely to finish 2nd in the NL ROY voting).

So, my vote goes to Rollins. Both Rollins and Holliday play on teams with remarkable comeback stories and neither team would sniff the playoffs without their star players. But I'll take the leadoff hitter playing a position generally reserved for defensive prowess over the inflated #s of he Rox LF.

[mweb]

As an aside, I've always thought of it the other way around. Baseball seems so much more poetic...football is cut and dry, numbers numbers numbers.

I guess we can't agree on anything today, can we bud;)

Ok, now I'm really flabbergasted. Baseball maybe more poetic, but what one guy does usually has little to nothing with what another guy does, it's 9 guys doing their own thing for the most part, and their production together leads to the results of the game. In football, there's much much more teamwork, what a skill player does has a lot to do with what the rest of his offense is doing and what the coaches have come up with in terms of system, gameplan, and individual play calls. In football, a guy like Emmitt Smith or Joe Montana probably would not have had nearly as good of careers if they were drafted by a team(and played most of their careers for) like the Cardinals or Bucs. In baseball, what a team a guy is on doesn't really matter in that sense.

[Pedro Cerrano]

Ok, now I'm really flabbergasted. Baseball maybe more poetic, but what one guy does usually has little to nothing with what another guy does, it's 9 guys doing their own thing for the most part, and their production together leads to the results of the game. In football, there's much much more teamwork, what a skill player does has a lot to do with what the rest of his offense is doing and what the coaches have come up with in terms of system, gameplan, and individual play calls. In football, a guy like Emmitt Smith or Joe Montana probably would not have had nearly as good of careers if they were drafted by a team(and played most of their careers for) like the Cardinals or Bucs. In baseball, what a team a guy is on doesn't really matter in that sense.

Wow, I strongly disagree. RBI, Wins (for a pitcher) and other non-statistical stuff all factor in. For example, batting one guy behind another guy to protect him. It's all intertwined.

[square634]

Wow, I strongly disagree. RBI, Wins (for a pitcher) and other non-statistical stuff all factor in. For example, batting one guy behind another guy to protect him. It's all intertwined.

That's the exact reason why runs, RBI, and wins don't really tell you much about a hitter. As for lineup protection, I think it's totally overrated.

[mweb]

Yea I mean I don't want to take anything away from Matt Holliday -- I think he's an incredible baseball player and I'd take him on my team any day.

And we can't forget that Rollins also had the luxury of playing his home games in a very generous HR park -- but his % of home HR versus away is much closer to 50/50 than Hollidays. Rollins was also able to triple 11 times there. The general rule is that the better a park is for HR the harder it is to hit triples.

There are two stats that stand out to me which sell me on Rollins -- his RBI and his runs scored.

139 runs scored is a product of a) getting on base and b) making things happen once you get on as evidenced by his 41 SB.

Secondly is RBI. For the most part Rollins hit leadoff htis year. I know he batted 3rd for a bit when Utley went down but the fact of the matter is he was able to amass close to 100 RBI hitting behind people like Dobbs, Ruiz, Helms and the freaking pitcher! I'd guess that he didn't have that many RBI chances and when he did, he generally came though.

Holliday got to bat behind Kaz Matsui, Willy Taveras (both who had career years) and Troy Tulowitzki (likely to finish 2nd in the NL ROY voting).

So, my vote goes to Rollins. Both Rollins and Holliday play on teams with remarkable comeback stories and neither team would sniff the playoffs without their star players. But I'll take the leadoff hitter playing a position generally reserved for defensive prowess over the inflated #s of he Rox LF.

The stat guys have really failed to get to you. Runs and RBI are too tied to the players around you for me to put that much credence in them. You say his runs are partially(mostly?) a product of getting on base, yet his OBP was only .344, only .003 better than the league average.

Concerning RBI, Rollins had a -4.7 Clutch rating on THT.

Here's the definition of clutch: "Clutch" is the name we've given to the portion of Bill James's Runs Created formula that includes the impact of a batter's batting average with runners in scoring position and the number of home runs with runners on. The specific formula is Hits with RISP minus overall BA times at bats with RISP, plus HR with runners on minus (all HR/AB) times at bats with runners on. This stat is not a definitive description of "clutch hitting," just one way of looking at it.

[square634]

The stat guys have really failed to get to you. Runs and RBI are too tied to the players around you for me to put that much credence in them. You say his runs are partially(mostly?) a product of getting on base, yet his OBP was only .344, only .003 better than the league average.

Concerning RBI, Rollins had a -4.7 Clutch rating on THT.

Here's the definition of clutch: "Clutch" is the name we've given to the portion of Bill James's Runs Created formula that includes the impact of a batter's batting average with runners in scoring position and the number of home runs with runners on. The specific formula is Hits with RISP minus overall BA times at bats with RISP, plus HR with runners on minus (all HR/AB) times at bats with runners on. This stat is not a definitive description of "clutch hitting," just one way of looking at it.

The "clutch" stat that looks at WPA wins minus "expected wins" based on RC or OPS seems much more accurate to me.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I suppose I should rephrase -- taking advantage of when he got on base. I'm aware of his OBP.

[mweb]

Wow, I strongly disagree. RBI, Wins (for a pitcher) and other non-statistical stuff all factor in. For example, batting one guy behind another guy to protect him. It's all intertwined.

I'm talking about good stats like OBP, Slugging, HR's, AVG, RC/G, VORP, FIP, DIPS, K'S, K/BB ratio, etc.

I agree those stats you mention are influenced by what surrounds you, and that's why they don't do nearly as well at showing how good a player is.

Although protection is not much of a factor at all.

[mweb]

The "clutch" stat that looks at WPA wins minus "expected wins" based on RC or OPS seems much more accurate to me.

Ok, well do you have a link for this years numbers with that stat?

[mweb]

I suppose I should rephrase -- taking advantage of when he got on base. I'm aware of his OBP.

His baserunning is a big plus, I won't take away from that, but it's mostly great hitters behind him taking advantage of him being on base.

And with his counting stats, a lot of that has to do with this!