MVP Bullcrap

Everyone who follows or writes about baseball has been talking about the MVP in the National league. PTI just gave Ryan Howard a 60% chance of winning it because "if you look at the numbers that matter, 50 HR and 150 RBI they are there" and "he should win it if his team makes the playoffs. I don't want to dig up the same arguments that anyone who has a brain that has an iota of baseball understanding has said, but I will anyways.

Value, as in the middle word of MVP, is not restricted to teams that make the playoffs. If I am the best player, the most valuable player in the league and the rest of my team stinks, I still have value. So much so that other teams would probably trade the farm for me and pay me a ton of money to move to Boston, or New York, or LA. Whatever games we did win were probably mostly because of me. The money that fans pay for the game are probably to see me. Value, lots, tons, boatloads of value without being on a team that makes the playoffs. Sort like Albert Pujols I guess.

If you want to read about how poor a measure of baseball value RBI's are read something by FireJoeMorgan.com, or Joe Posnanski, or Keith Law of ESPN, or just read Moneyball and start there. But basically the people who finish with the most RBI most of the time are the people who have the most RBI opportunities. It is a statistic that measures teams, not individuals. It might help Ryan Howard because he has Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley on base all the time. Now onto fun with numbers and why Ryan Howard's name shouldn't even come up, WOO!

National League Players with higher VORP

I was going to make a list but there were too many players. He is 33rd just behind Randy Winn and Mark Derosa. And just ahead of the National league only statistics of Jason Bay and Big Marky Tex. This is not to say that Ryan Howard isn't valuable. Just that there are a lot of people playing better baseball. Being a first baseman, he is expected to be able to hit for power. It is easier to get power production out of a first baseman than say, a shortstop. His line of .249/.337/.546 is really good. But Albert Pujols is currently sitting at .354/.468/.640. They play the same position. If you believe the most important things to scoring runs are getting on base, and hitting the ball hard (which I do) Albert Pujols is lightyears ahead of Howard. Hanley Ramirez is currently .296/.398/.538 while stealing 33 bases and playing the much more important defensive position of SS.

Then there is the other half of the diamond, the defense. I mentioned that Pujols and Howard play the same position. But that is only mostly true. They both are by name a first baseman. However, Pujols' Revised Zone Rating (amount of plays made in the zone for the position played expressed as a decimal) is .842 while making 49 plays out of the zone. Ryan Howard's is .766 while only making 31 plays out of the zone. According to Baseball Prospectus that is worth 23 runs, ON DEFENSE ALONE. 23 runs is worth about two wins over 162 game season. Did I mention that Albert Pujols is a much better hitter. Just for kicks Hanley is about 5 runs better than Howard, playing a much harder position and being a much more impressive hitter. As a Marlins fan I love to see Hanley playing about league average defense this year.

Back to Pujols, if Howard wins over him there should be an investigation into the voting. After looking at defensive and offensive metrics here is a list of players who are having a better full season in Howard's own division.

Hanley Ramirez
Chase Utley
Jose Reyes
David Wright
Carlos Beltran
Chipper Jones
Brian McCann
Dan Uggla
Jimmy Rollins
Christian Guzman!
Carlos Delgado

IN HIS DIVISION. THIRD ON HIS TEAM. The same argument also goes for Delgado, he is just slightly better than Howard.