An intriguing Who Should Be MVP Post

[conception]

I've got quite a quandry here for who should win my batter of the year award. I've got 3 quite deserving candidates, all who had their incredibly outstanding performances for the same team, which happens to be mine. This eliminates the team performance factor, so we can evaluate their statistical accomplishments alone.

Candidate #1 Flavio Sentiero, CF
AB H AVG HR RBI R SB OBP SLG OPS
625 219 .350 34 109 167 92 .458 .582 1.040

Flavio was the the table-setter for the most dynamic offense in league history, and a phenomenal job he did. He was a beast on the basepaths, capable of getting 3-4 steals in certain games and constantly terrorizing pitchers. On top of that, he was an incredibly well rounded hitter, not only getting on base at an incredible rate but also slugging as well as a middle of the order hitter. His 109 RBI from the leadoff spot, with the pitcher spot ahead of him, is an incredible testament to just how complete of a player he was. And to top it all off, his defense in CF is impeccable.

Candidate #2 Campbell Van Egmond, 1B
AB H AVG HR RBI R OBP SLG OPS
643 230 .358 51 206 147 .420 .680 1.100

Campbell was simply a monster at the plate this year. His 206 RBI completely shattered the existing record of 177, and on top of that it is absolutely the most I've ever seen in a 162 game season in any league or environment. He no doubt benefitted from having on-base machines such as Sentiero ahead of him, but his 51 homers and batting title-winning .358 average showed that he generated plenty of enough offense for himself. Also, he hit .383 with runners in scoring position. n many cases, RBI are a huge factor in MVP votes, and that Campbell topped the previous mark by nearly 30 makes him an unbelievable candidate. The only negative thign you can say about him is that his numbers were generated from the most offensive-oriented position on the field, making him perhaps less exceptional at his position than his outstanding numbers would indicate.

Candidate #3 Kevin Ohman, RF
AB H AVG HR RBI R OBP SLG OPS
566 182 .322 59 171 145 .464 .708 1.172

Like Van Egmond, Ohman broke one of the league's most treasured offensive records by slugging 59 HR. But he wasn't just a pure slugger, as his on-base ability was phenomenal and he racked up a lot of big hits of all types to get the best SLG & OPS in the league. Normally the best HR hitter in the game is not necessarily the most valuable, but by the percentages he was clearly the best hitter in the league as well. His 171 RBI are over 30 less than Van Egmond, but he was no slouch in this department either, still averaging over a run a game. And averaging a HR less than every 10 at-bats? Phenomenal. Ohman is also an above average RFer, providing defensive value.

All 3 of these players had outstanding perfomances, all deserving the award themselves. Senteiro probably had the most well-rounded season in league history, while Van Egmond and Ohman were both incredibly well rounded hitters. This is not about comparing their performances as much as a philisophical debate as to what comprises the most valuable position player in the league.

[Kelric]

Break the award into three pieces. Otherwise, I'm leaning towards Ohman. Or Sentiero. Or Van Egmond...

[conception]

Well, I really need one definitive winner. OOTP doesn't allow you to have dual winners, which I agree with because I think in some leagues (cough NFL) its really a cop-out to name two guys as co-MVP.

It deserves mentioning that all these guys put up their numbers in an environment that overall plays pretty neutral, although it does favor their left-handed hitting over right. It was actually a detriment to them that nearly every hitter on my team was left-handed, because they were forced to take an inordinate amount of AB's against left-handed relievers due to their being on average only 1-2 righties in the lineup.

[Qwerty75]

A few questions/requests:

1) Is it the MVP award or the most outstanding hitter award? If it's just a hitting award, I would ignore defense. If it's the MVP, defense comes into play as well as value relative to position. This is where VORP comes in handy.

2) Where did Van Egmond and Ohman bat in the lineup respectively? Basically I want to know why VE got so many more RBI than Ohman while scoring the same # of runs.

3) Put up their walk totals so we have an idea of that side of the equation.

4) If it's strictly a hitting award, I'm tempted to say just go with who has the most Runs Created. I'm not 100% sure if the OotP version counts SBs, though, so Sentiero might get shortchanged here despite having more PA.

[damientheomen3]

I'd say either Sentiero, Van Egmond, or Ohman

Seriously, though, I'd say Ohman. He set the home run record, had a BA over .320, the highest OPS, slugging percentage and OBP, and he scored almost 150 runs to go with his 59 homers and 171 RBI. It's ridiculously close, though.

[conception]

It is the default whatever you want it to be best hitter award. I've always thought of it as an MVP award and my interpretation is "best positon player", which includes defense and the position the production is coming from as a factor, not necessarily a large one but a factor nonetheless that can be used in tie-breaking situations.

I thought about listing the disparity between Ohman and Van Egmond. Van Egmond had established himself as a middle order hitter in previous years with my ballclub. Ohman was an offseason acquisition, he had been in my system before but got away in a massive expansion draft which gutted much of my roster intentionally. He had been a very solid player before, but he started out in the bottom half of the order underneath some very talented hitters who deserved their positions in my lineup. He started out of the gate very fast, but my entire team did and I was hesitant to tamper with success. He only moved up in the order later in the season, when it became apparent that he could approach an historic season, and he was moved to the third spot to get the most AB's possible. That is certainly a factor in the RBI disparity, although I really just have to tip the hat to how many runs Van Egmond was capable of producing and wonder if even created super-players would be able to replicate that type of season with equal players around them.

[Qwerty75]

Since you're counting positional value, I'd start by comparing their VORP as a starting point. Then make a rough adjustment for defense. It you can't quantify defense precisely in X, but go with your sense of their defensive value and adjust your rankings from there.

I tend to put less emphasis on raw RBI + R (Production) because Ohman could well have had those high Production numbers had he batted in VE's spot in the lineup. You want to compare apples with apples, so start with VORP.

[conception]

Interestingly enough, the guy with the highest VORP was Senteiro, who also happens to be the GG caliber defender. That's why he is in this discussion even though the other players produced more eye-opening numbers.

I understand what you are saying about the RBI with it being a counting stat and influenced by opportunity, but I don't think it is necessarily fair to discount that when Van Egmond's strongest asset was the ability to produce in big situations. Both Van Egmond and Ohman were outstanding with RISP, but the former was the most outstanding, getting a 1.206 OPS, .775 SLG, and slugging 24 homers in 240 RISP ABs, a 10.0 ab/hr, and hitting at a .383 clip with 29 walks. Ohman actually came in just under 10 ab/hr (18 HR in 179 AB) with RISP but hit "only" .324 with RISP. His other RISP stats were a 1.175 OPS, a .704 SLG, & 52 walks.

Van Egmond did total more RISP PA's (269 to Ohman's 231), but one thing you have to factor into these situations is that Ohman, a marginally more patient hitter than Van Egmond, took nearly twice as many walks in those situations. This is where the sabermetric logic of OBP being superior to average doesn't make sense, because Van Egmond was more willing to swing for a hit and thus he was able to score runners from second. Ohman, while still doing something positive for his team by getting a walk, wasn't necessarily driving in any runs in those situations unless the bases were loaded. CVE totalled an astounding 163 RBI with RISP, while Ohman totalled 113. If you equalize their PA's with RISP, Ohman would still be short of CVE's production, and while he did outpace him in run production without RISP, the RISP at bats totalled nearly 75 percent of all AB's that lead to runs, so this could explain why Van Egmond was the better run producer even if Ohman could have had better overall numbers.

[Qwerty75]

It sounds like you're trying to weigh the "clutch" factor, which sabermetric run estimators ignore. This will be hard to quantify ... I think Bill James did to some extent with Win Shares, but this isn't available in-game.

How do they stack up in Runs Created?

[conception]

Van Egmond has 10.83 RC/27, and 182.9 RC.
Ohman has 13.30 RC/27, 198.5 RC.

This is something that I didn't think to look at, and Ohman is clearly better in this situation. But as I don't use these stats very much, I only have a very general idea of how they are calculated.

In terms of estimating future performance, I think the clutch factor being somewhat of an anomaly may be counted for. But in comparing a player performance over a year, I don't think it can be ignored. I've heard a lot of people criticize one player's season over another because one player may have statistical indicators that he won't sustain that performance. For me, that is irrelevant to who actually a better season. A pitcher with a 4.50 ERA may be a better bet to succeed in the future than a guy who was "lucky" and got a 3.80 ERA, but the guy who had that ERA still allowed less runs, which at least for a starter is the prime judge of performance IMHO, the second guy had the better season and sometimes people get sidetracked.

[Qwerty75]

Yes, I do appreciate your point that performance in the clutch adds to real value even though it might not be repeatable and projectible ... it's relevant to deciding something like an award. My point was just that because it's hard to weigh clutch performance against the metrics that take that out of the equation, you have to try to take a holistic view of things which can lead you in many different directions.

Runs Created is a run estimator which, in its simplest form, is OBP*SLG*AB. I'm guessing the formula used in the game incorporates SB too and uses the partial linear weights that James embraced in his most recent versions. RC/27 is the rate stat for RC that can be seen as answering the question "How many runs would a lineup composed of 9 players X score?" -- kind of like the old saw from Moneyball that a lineup of 9 Scott Hattebergs would be a pretty good one.

It seems to me you're leaning toward CVE. In the face of the statistical data available, what you have to decide is whether his stellar clutch performance outweighs the advantages the other players have in situation-neutral stats. On top of that, he plays a position that is less scarce in hitting talent and is the least accomplished defender.

CVE would probably win the award if the vote were held in the real world most years. From the data you've given, it looks like Ohman would be the conventional sabermetric choice. I'm leaning towards taking the third party route and going for Senteiro, which accounts best for positional and defensive value.

[mrcoach00]

I say Senteiro. You can argue that the other two had huge HR and RBI years, but I have to think that Senteiro would have cracked atleast 150 RBI if he was in the middle of the lineup. You could also argue that if you had an average table setter at the top of the lineup that the other two would not have had the huge RBI years they did.
Speed is another factor. In the real world, what a huge distraction Senteiro would be to the pitcher on the basepaths when the pitcher was supposed to be focusing on the other two big guys.
Also, I'm sure that all three went into a power/hitting slump at some point, but Senteiro was more valuable during those times because of his GG defense and the fact that speed never slumps.
I vote for the CF.

[conception]

Just for statistical comparison, I have to say that Senteiro's RC27 was 10.73 while his RC was 170.9. This puts him at the bottom of the three mentioned, but while that may establish him as still the worst of the three in terms of offense, he did provide the best defensive and positional value.