Most Valuable Pitching Players

Opening Day is easy, everyone has hope etc. On the last day of the year for 22 teams the hope is extinguished and to still be there then that is a fan.

Strange because he doesn’t get that high level of attention he perhaps deserves

It’s really unfortunate that it seems to be biased toward one team every time something like this happens. I’d be okay with missed calls if they were consistently missed. Major league hitters are capable of adapting to that, but when the benefit goes to one team and not the other, what are you to do?

oops

But I haven’t been around for a season like Vida Blue’s to make me feel like it was deserved for a pitcher.

This whole notion “he only plays every fifth day” is.

Justin Verlander took part in 910 PA of his team. Jacoby Ellsbury in 674, Bautista 604 . If you add the fielding events in which they participated, they are all at around 1000 plate appearances. Pitcher participates in about one fifth of the games, but when he does, he works about five times as much as a position player.

What if a batter could go to bat 25 times in one game and then had to sit for four and he accumulated the same stats as Ellsbury or Longoria? Should he also be discarded? If a pitcher has more positive influence on his team in his 1000 plate appearances than a hitter has in his 1000, then there is no reason why he should not win it. Not saying that Verlander should win it this year (B-Ref has him ahead of Ellsbury and behind Bautista, FanGraphs behind both), but if not – it should be because he wasn’t as good, and not because “he plays only every fifth day” cliché.

Question:

There are at least 1458 innings to be played in a regular year, Verlander will appear in roughly 15% of his teams innings. Exactly how much "value" can he give his team compared to a player who produces every day?

Answer:

Its such an illogical notion, what they mean "valuable" to be. There was a stat created called WAR to show just how exactly a player won more games for his team when compared to a replacement level player, but that’s not what voters gauge "value" on? Get out of town.

Albert Pujols winning Cy Young would be equivalent to an AL pitcher winning Silver Slugger award at first base.

MVP stands for Most Valuable Player, and last I checked pitchers were baseball players, too.

And was the best in the league. I’d be all for him winning the Cy Young.

I didn’t become a fan of baseball at age (earlier than I can remember) because of FIP or WAR. They didn’t exist when I became a fan. But ultimately you can interpret what you see numerous ways. Not even looking at stats, Eckersley as Posnanski wrote pitched around 80 innings that season. The games he closed out were far from close more often than not. If striking fear in an opponent is worthy of an MVP and electrifying crowds works too then what does it exactly measure? Teams have guys they like for years on end who aren’t good. Living in Detroit, Brandon Inge was always a fan favorite – he was terrible – but he electrified Detroit fans for whatever reason. Is that MVP caliber electrification?

I am not saying Eckersley was bad, but he wasn’t the best in the American League and he wasn’t even the best on the A’s no matter how excited people were and how confident they were that he’d close out the game. Even if you use no stats at all, Eckersley wouldn’t come into the game if the A’s hitters guys like McGwire, Henderson, Steinbach, Bordick and Blankenship got him the runs to put him in a position to be there. Eckersley finished up what others had already won, don’t lose sight of that aspect of a closer. He KEEPS the victory in tact, he doesn’t in fact achieve it.

League-wide, teams almost always win when they’re ahead going to the ninth inning. Closers bring psychological relief to fans and managers, and perhaps to teammates as well (though the size of any effect on those lines would be entirely speculative), but it’s just not that hard for a major-league reliever of reasonable quality to not allow two runs in an inning, even when the other manager gets to play balls-out by setting up platoon advantages with little regard for defense in the (non-existent unless runs are scored) next inning.

Eckersley maybe nailed down an extra win or two that a lesser pitch would not have, but the gap between him and any old random closer is dwarfed by the gap between, say, Mark McGwire and any old random first baseman.

I’ve become enamored, recently, of the idea that there is no one right way to define “value”. Dave Studeman, in response to a blog post of mine on the subject, suggested, essentially, that MVPs might be determined by “Which players provided the most inspirational story over an extended period of time? Consider stats, but don’t get carried away with them. MVP is all about perception and fan interest. It isn’t about stats.”

I don’t want to speak for studes in re: whether he actually personally wants to use this definition in MVP voting, but it sounds, Questor, like it might be your value. The only thing I ask of my fellow fans is that they abide by the rules they’ve set themselves. So on your theory of value that drops you on Eckersley in 1992, who are your MVPs this year?

I think if I were using this value (which studes named “STORY+” following my naming scheme), I’d go Justin Verlander and … the NL is hard. Craig Kimbrel, maybe?

Though Adrian Gonzalez and Cabrera have also made a case for themselves. Still, Ellsbury has really surprised me; 27 HR and 96 RBI.

Good Golly, Miss Molly! That’s something – I do not know for sure – to either laugh or cry about.

Being an eternal optimist, I believe that the A’s might make a run for the Division next year – the big question is HOW? Pitching should be, again, the first building block. I keep hoping that Cahill can straighten up his thinking over the Winter – when he is cool, he can be devastating, like a well-tuned pitching machine. Anderson is a question mark, physically, until we see him in action. Harden has not developed into a consistently trustworthy pitcher, for whatever reason. Gio has a good opportunity to stabilize into a big winner, though his problems are up to now mental. McCarthy is becoming a fairly reliable mainstay. And Moscoso has the makings of some of the great Latin pitchers – as long as he concentrates on his game and, possibly, learns another pitch – for my money, a knuckleball; Latin pitchers often use a great variety of pitches and become “crafty” in their trade – it is part of the mentality, to overcome by mental flexibility, rather than by overpowering (of course, there are always exceptions, like Marichal). Possibly we will see also some of the kids like Gray or Krol coming up line and sticking at the big level next year, if given the chance. The big challenge will be not to repeat the mistakes made over the past two seasons, and keep them healthy; Melvin seems to be doing a good job of it. So, the A’s have good pitching material to work with and develop further at the MLB level.

Looking at batting, I keep thinking of the A’s three great paragon hitters – Jackson, McGwire, and Canseco. Jackson and Canseco were superbly self-confident and high-strutting, while McGwire developed slowly by studying his trade and using all the resources available to excel. (As I said before, baseball should not have penalized steroids – they were just part of the athletics world of the 80’s). That is, there are hitters who become great through raw talent, and others who become very professional at the trade – the issue is to recognize either of the two kinds, and work with them accordingly. Among the A’s youngsters, Allen has potential – he is smart, learns fast, has good hands, and is not afraid of using his whole body for the sake of the game – he has his own development road, to build consistency and clutch hitting. Carter seems somewhat hazy, probably he gets easily distracted, so personally I do not see much potential in him at the MLB level, and I hope I am dead wrong on that! Taylor, Green, and Choice are the kids that bear real watching – I think they will develop into outstanding players, and I think that might happen next year – if we have to wait another year, they might not reach greatness – they have raw talent, they are not the long-term students of the McGwire type, and they are well aware that the Team could take them in, if they deserve it. Rather, they either become Jacksons, or languish in mediocrity.

And, finally, as to defense, Melvin is going to make it or break it – he will do in Spring 2012 what was not done the past Spring, that is, practice and practice again, until defense plays become automatic and players know each other well enough to be sure of the plays they can and cannot make. Whoever said that baseball is an easy game?