Late Innings

Update: I wasn’t the only one who thought that Mauer should have won the award… ESPN’s Rob Neyer also agrees. Still Pedroia is NOT a bad choice by any means.

As of now, the MVPs were officially determined by the BWAA. Dustin Pedroia took the American League honors, while Cardinals’ first baseman Albert Pujols took home the National League award. Personally, the BWAA got these correct, as they did with the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards. It’s what happened further down the list that makes me scratch my head.

Honestly I’ve been back and forth on the AL choice for some time now. I’ve thought about each of the top four players winning the award, especially Joe Mauer in particular. Pedroia is a fine choice, and had an all-around solid 2008 campaign. Still given the fact that the race was as up-in-the-air as it was, I expected this to be much closer. Mauer got the most second-place votes, but Pedroia won the award handsomely. If anything, the race should’t have been as close in the National League as it was between Pujols and Ryan Howard.

The AL MVP hit .326/17/83 with 20 steals in 2008 (image Fox Sports.)

If there are two things that determine the outcome of the MVP race (at least according to old-school BWAA writers), they are:

1. Whether a player’s team makes the postseason
2. RBI totals

Basing the MVP award on the first choice is entirely unfair, since that immediately disqualifies 73% of players who go back home in October. However these two points were clearly relevant in this year’s voting, and it was more obvious in the National League. Going by pure statistics, Pujols destroyed Howard in 2008 (think “the slashes.") However since Howard was part of a much more potent offense, he had more chances to drive in runs than Pujols. And Howard’s team also made the postseason as well by the way.

The NL MVP hit .357/37/116 with an OPS of 1.114 (AP Photo/Tom Gannam, file)

I know Pujols made comments back in 2006 about how he should have won the award instead of Howard since his team made the playoffs (ironic how we have the exact opposite case here), but Howard was clearly MVP-worthy in 2006. There are a handful of players in the National League who were more valuable than him in 2008 however.

Some of the writers who cast ballots the past few days have had me scratching my head. Some things I don’t get:

• Why did Cliff Lee win the Cy Young yet finish behind Francisco Rodriguez in the MVP voting?
• Which writer actually gave K-Rod a first place vote in the first place? (Seriously???)
• Why did Carlos Delgado finish in the top ten in NL voting, yet a more-valuable Carlos to the Mets (that is Mr. Beltran) only receives ten points?
• How come Hanley Ramirez failed to crack the top ten?
• How come Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia (finishing fourth and sixth respectively) got as much consideration as they did when they were mostly mediocre for their previous clubs before being traded?
• Why was Edison Volquez considered for the Rookie of the Year voting, when he clearly wasn’t a rookie? (Actually BP hit this hard over the weekend.)

I know new age statistics aren’t popular with the classical BWAA voters who casually follow the sport, however one statistic that’s clearly applicable is VORP, or “Value over Replacement Player". In other words, this is the “V part” of MVP.

With that said, my logic for calculating the MVP is relatively simple. Pick a player, then remove him from the team. The player whose team regressed the most after this happened is the MVP. It’s not too hard (though you could accomplish this by using the following algorithm for calculating VORP.) I mean, if you removed Pujols from the middle of the order in St. Louis, would the team have even been in contention in September, especially given their injury-riddled pitching staff? Probably not. What happens if you remove Howard? Dare I say this, but given Howard’s lousy postseason play, the Phillies would have still won the World Series.

Overplaying your Hands

I know I didn’t mention this, however I like the prospect (Jose Ceda) the Marlins received from the Cubs in the Kevin Gregg trade (he was the guy that I wish Baltimore would have got if they had traded Brian Roberts last Spring.) Any ways back off the tangent, the Giants made the first quick strike into the free agent market, grabbing lefty Jeremy Affeldt at two years, 8MM. Like everyone else, I like this move. Affeldt is a good pitcher who will flourish in (pitcher-friendly) San Francisco.

Terms of the contract weren’t anything different than what Ron Mahay got from the Royals last winter (he’s also a good lefty), however the Giants could cash in if Affeldt either gets a chance to start or close for the team. The likelihood of this happening is good too, with Tim Lincecum being a strong canidate for a breakdown in 2009, and their All-Star closer (Brian Wilson) being anything but automatic.

If Affeldt starts for the Giants, the team could be in the same boat as the Cubs are with Ryan Dempster (who apparently is on the verge of signing a four year, 50MM deal. Update, it happened, I’ll discuss late.) As many remember, Affeldt broke into last winter demanding something like 7MM over four years. He didn’t get the deal, and settled on the one-year deal he got from the Reds. It paid out well for both parties, since Affeldt proved that he was a serviceable pitcher, and the Reds get compensation in the 2009 draft since Elias classified him as a Type B free agent.

Usually when a player turns down a lucrative contract, you have to think a little. Josh Fogg turned down a big deal from the Rockies last Winter, only to find himself looking for work in the Spring. Same thing goes with Kyle Lohse, who turned down 21MM from the Phillies and found himself in the same position (he did get paid a year later however.)

Affeldt didn’t officially receive a big offer last Winter, however I wonder why he didn’t test the market a little better this year. Still, I’m sure he thought about Fogg and Lohse when he made his decision yesterday. Now what will the other free agent starters do with the Yankees’ offers, that is Sabathia (140MM) and now A.J. Burnett (80MM?)