The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) announces the AL Most Valuable Player at 2 PM EST Monday afternoon. It seems to be a very tough choice this season. There are a number of very good candidates, and which one you choose depends on how MVP is defined. On my IBWAA ballot (internet writers), I chose Justin Verlander as my top pick. Looking at rankings on Baseball Reference and FanGraphs, he seems to be consensus high WAR leader. Many however, don’t consider a pitcher MVP material due to the limited amount of game played. Verlander did face 969 batters this season, which is more than any individual batter got to the plate.
The next two slots in my mind go to Jacoby Ellsbury and Jose Bautista. Voters, however, tend to award the MVP to players on teams that did well. Toronto was an also ran while Boston suffered an epic collapse. Ellsbury was one of the bright spots during that awful run, hitting .358/.400/.667 for September. I’ve seldom held team play against an individual, so they are a very close 2-3 on my ballot.
The playing for a winner should help Verlander, as we then get down to Curtis Granderson, Ian Kinsler, and Miguel Cabrera as non-pitching candidates who played for winners. Granderson doesn’t make the top ten in WAR for Baseball Reference, while the three are very close on FanGraphs. That leads me to believe Cabrera will edge out the other two. Justin should win, but if the vote comes down to hitter on a winner, I suspect Miguel Cabrera will get the nod.
I wouldn’t entirely complain about Verlander winning it, ’cause there could be much worse choices. I think Bautista deserves it slightly more though. His WPA was higher, which I interpret as meaning his value showed up more, in the more important situations for the team than Verlander’s did.
Verlander’s batters-faced count is misleading, I think, for two reasons:
a. As a starting pitcher, the best he could possibly do would be to contribute to 34-35 wins. A hitter could potentially contribute to all of them.
b. The best thing a hitter can do is win a game. The best thing a pitcher can do is not lose it. Pitchers cannot actually “win” games – they only play defense.
There’s a lot of complicated mathematical arguments you can make about the value of defense given average scores and so forth, but the division of events makes it easier for hitters to contribute to more wins.
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