At 5pm today, voting closes for each league’s 25th All-Star over at MLB.com. As of this writing, Evan Longoria leads the AL voting, which is fine by me although Giambi’s another worthy choice. But I do have a problem with Corey Hart being the top vote-getter for the National League. The man’s a fine player, to be sure, and I’m glad to see he’s getting some recognition. But he simply hasn’t been as good as 3 of the other eligible candidates, David Wright, Carlos Lee, and Pat Burrell (Why is Aaron Rowand eligible? Can someone please explain this to me?).

However, in my mind, there is one clear choice. And as a Mets fan, I obviously have to vote for… Pat Burrell.

Whoa. Did I just write that? Hold on. Let me try this again. <ahem> I think we should all head over to MLB.com right now before 5pm and vote for… Pat Burrell.

Dagnabit! There it is again. Why can’t I just write David Wright? D-A-V-I-D W-R-I-G-H-T. He’s clearly a deserving All-Star. And I can’t vote for Pat Burrell!!! He’s a Phillie! I think I’ve been possessed. Excuse me while I undergo an exorcism:

FATHER DAMIEN KARRAS: Remember Paul. You’re a Met fan. And a fan stands by his team.

PRINCE OF DARKNESS: But Burrell’s been better.

FATHER KARRAS: Lies! Such Lies! Wright has a better batting average!

PRINCE OF DARKNESS: By three measly points. Totally inconsequential.

FATHER KARRAS: Look at the RBIs, Paul! The RBIs! Wright has 16 more!

THE P.O.D.: Only because Wright has had 213 plate appearances with runners on base. Burrell has only had 145 and has performed much better in those situations than Wright.

FATHER KARRAS: NOW YOU JUST WAIT A… Huh? Really?

THE DUDE WITH THE HORNS: Yup.

FATHER KARRAS: But what about defense! Ah-Ha! David plays third base - a far more demanding and important position than left field and does so admirably!

THE MAN WHO OWNS RYAN SEACREST’S SOUL: That may be true. But Burrell’s .414 OBP and .587 slugging percentage is more helpful to his team than Wright is with his .381/.504. Glove or no glove.

FATHER KARRAS: But Philly’s a hitter’s park while Shea is a pitcher’s paradise!

DAVE GROHL: Still doesn’t account for that much a disparity. OPS-Plus, which is park-adjusted, has Burrell miles ahead of Wright, 157 to 136. It’s no contest. And Burrell also has Wright beat in Win Shares.

FATHER KARRAS: Why do you speak in such evil tongues? Paul, remember you are a Met fan! A MET FAN! HE’S A PHILLIE!!!

PRINCE OF DARKNESS: Sorry Padre. But the man’s mind is made up. It’s Burrell.

FATHER KARRAS: NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

………..

So, yeah. Go vote for Pat the Bat. He deserves it.

The fantasy season is now in its third month. How our teams—and their stars—did last week:

Sarah: I should have known. No sooner do I start crowing about my unstoppable offense than the fantasy baseball gods look down from their airy perches and decide to smite me for my hubris. The Somerville Green Sox hitters got off to such an anemic start this week that I was pleased just to escape with a 7-5 loss rather than the 10-2 drubbing that earlier seemed to be my fate. My pitchers reverted to their natural, awful state, but I hope that will change, as I used my waiver priority to pick up Clayton Kershaw. Yes, he promptly (and unsurprisingly, really) got rocked by the Mets, but I look forward to his games against the weaker NL offenses. I also revamped my closing staff, dumping part-time-sub Manny Acosta and bad juju-machine Eric Gagne in favor of Brian Wilson and Rafael Soriano. I’ve got more pitching moves to make in the near future, as Pedro Martinez, who I picked up ages ago, is finally set to come off the DL tomorrow. Hot: Jacoby Ellsbury (8 SB!), Ryan Braun (19 TB!), Russell Martin, Xavier Nady. Not: David Murphy (why do I still have him?), James Loney, JD Drew (yes, he had a .462 OBP last week, but only 7 TB because all he does is walk—swing, jackass!), Rickie Weeks (not having the breakout year I had planned on), Carlos Guillen (ouchie), and last week’s hero, Dana Eveland, who got shelled.

Coley: That’s right, I was that guy. I was the guy who drafted Jay Bruce and stashed him on the bench for two months. And you snickered. You thought, “what a reckless use of bench space.” But now who’s laughing? Now who looks smart? Me! Of course, now I’ve got a bit of a problem, though it’s a good problem to have. I’ve got too many outfielders. There’s Milton Bradley, Josh Hamilton, Johnny Damon, Vlad Guererro, Carl Crawford and Jay Bruce. Of course, I could just keep one of them on my bench as insurance. Or I could deal one for pitching. Thoughts? Hot: Jay Bruce, Josh Hamilton, Johnny Damon, Todd Helton, Brad Lidge. Not: Yunel Escobar, Carlos Pena, Jered Weaver.

Alejandro: When it first seemed like my Center Field Stud was finally going to lose after four consecutive weeks of victories, my offense decided to check in. Glad as I was of the offensive prowess of Aaron Rowand, Carlos Lee, and Jermaine Dye, Montefusco’s Revenge didn’t go down quietly, beating me out in 4 out 6 offensive categories. I don’t know how, but my pitching carried the load, returning the favor and wining 5 out 6 stats. The only loss was due to my “bloated” 3.97 era, all thanks to Mr. Mark Hendrickson hitting a wall and getting tagged for 10 freakin’ runs, oh and for B.J. Ryan finally succumbing to statistical trends and blowing a save. Tim Linceum continues to dominate, but the surprise has been Todd Wellemeyer who very quietly is posting very impressive numbers (1-0, 1.29 ERA, 4Ks, 1.14 WHIP – though if I were to trust my colleague Nick Kapur, I should be trading him, like, NOW!). Hot: Aaron Rowand, Jermaine Dye (not really, but he did hit a home run and collected 11 TBs), Tim Lincecum, Todd Wellemeyer, Josh Becket (no wins, but 10 Ks!), Kerry Wood (4 saves and a negligible ZERO era), Jon Garland (another non-winner, 8-Ker, 2.19 ERA). Not: Dan Uggla, A.J. Pierzynksi (what a seesaw), Connor Jackson (boy’s hurting, give him some time).

Paul: Me win. Conquer Sooze and Sooze army (freebase my balls). Win lucky though. ElDuque’sInjuryReport no play good. Pitchers had ERA over 5. Still won Wins, Saves, K, and K/BB, whatever that mean. How that happen? David Wright do good. All-Star. Me Met fan. When Wright do good, make me happy. Shane Victorino good too. Scored thirteen runs on own! WOW! Only got on base safely 13 times all week! Still scored 13! Phillies have big bats! Me still think Brett Myers dumb… Me also bring Randy Winn on team. Matt Holliday hurt. Needed outfielder. Winn outfielder. Good match. But two days later, saw Travis Hafner get dropped. Me clubbed Winn over head with big stick. Winn go sleep. Me dragged Winn to garbage pit. Picked up Pronk instead. Brought Pronk home. Pronk easy name for caveman to say. Bye bye Winn. HOT: David Wright, Shane Victorino, Scott “Cy Young” Kazmir. NOT: Geovany Soto, Edwin Encarnacion, Chris B. Young, Ted Lilly, Hiroki Kuroda.

Standings, with games behind:

1. Paul (ElDuquesInjuryReport) (0)

2. Scott (Utley’s Firm Quads) (5.5)

3. Doug (Swamp Dragons) (9.5)

4. Alejandro (Center Field Stud) (12.5)

5. Sarah (Somerville Green Sox) (14)

6. Kirk (Montefusco’s Revenge) (20)

7. Larry (croutchyoldman) (22)

6. Bryan (Pirates in 08!) (22.5)

9. Ania (Box89RowKKSeat14) (26.5)

10. Sooze (freebase my balls) (29.5)

11. Coley (Crunkball All Stars) (31.5)

12. Caitlin (caitlin grace) (34.5)

Tomorrow, MLB will announce the winner of the National League MVP Award. Candidates include Chipper Jones, Jimmy Rollins, David Wright, Prince Fielder and Matt Holliday.

A while back Paul and I debated who should win the award and he ultimately convinced me that David Wright is the clear choice.

I emailed that post to Philadelphia Daily News baseball writer Paul Hagen, who is the former head of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and asked him what he thought of Wright’s candidacy. Here’s what he had to say:

Umpbump: Like most Phillies fans I’m hoping Jimmy Rollins will win the NL MVP, while I fully expect Matt Holliday will win. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I was convinced that David Wright should win. What do you think of David Wright for NL MVP?

PH: I think an argument can be made for David Wright. However, I have to say that in the years I vote, I put a lot of emphasis on the word “Valuable.” To me, that connotes intangibles. I think that’s what differentiates the MVP from, say, a “Player of the Year” award. And it would be hard for me to find that much value in a player who was part of one of the most epic collapses in baseball history.

Umpbump: See, that’s funny. We’ve been having a long debate about the value of intangibles in the comments section of our site this week. Sarah, who is a columnist for the Boston Metro, thinks intangibles are extremely important. Paul and Nick, who are sabermetrics guys, think intangibles can’t be measured and therefore we shouldn’t worry about them.

Here’s what Nick had to say about intangibles:

This is different from saying that “leadership” as a skill doesn’t exist. I think we all have some idea that these intangibles *do* exist and *are* worth something. But I suspect that what they are worth is far far less than what the media types who KNOW because they’ve BEEN IN THE LOCKER ROOM say it is. It’s probably like clutch hitting - maybe it makes like a 1 or 2 percent contribution to winning or something, the rest of which is comprised of actually getting it done on the actual field.

Because, look, if “team chemistry” is as valuable as you columnists all say it is, then how do we account for all the teams that won World Series but totally hated each other? How do we account for all the teams that loved each other and loved their manager, but never won? How do we account for the fact that, even in the middle of the hottest hot streak, or the coldest cold streak, a player’s chance of getting a hit in his next at bat is pretty much *exactly* equal to his career batting average?

You can read the rest of Sarah and Nick’s thoughts in the comments section of this post.

As for Wright and his team’s collapse, I used to feel the same way. In fact, I wrote:

Believe me, if the MLB had an award for sabermetric achievement, I would support David Wright’s candidacy wholeheartedly. But how valuable can you be when you’re team implodes spectacularly when the games matter most?

But, as Umpbump Paul points out, you can’t blame Wright for the Mets’ failures. He was dominant down the stretch:

You simply can’t hold it against David Wright that the Mets fell apart. Did you know that he had a .360 AVG, .429 OBP, .602 SLG, 1.034 OPS in the month of September even though the team’s season was going down the tubes? Didn’t he perform “when it counted”?

I gotta say, I think Umpbump Paul is correct. As much as I’d like to see Rollins win, if I’m being honest I vote for Wright.

PH: That’s what makes it such a great debate. I still kind of hold to the idea that you can’t be that valuable, no matter what your individual contributions, if your team is falling apart around you. But I certainly understand the other argument.

Umpbump: I’m not sure that a total lack of consensus about the meaning of “valuable” makes it a great debate. I think we can have a great debate about the value of the save, or the merits of “small ball”. But arguing about who is the most valuable when nobody can agree what “valuable” means reminds me of when I used to talk to a friend of mine who was color blind. We’d be talking about the same thing, but seeing it differently.

I’d be happy to see MLB get rid of the MVP award and give out a Player of the Year Award, instead.

PH: When I was president of the Baseball Writers Association, I proposed that we add a Player of the Year Award. My thought was that it wouldbe the position player’s equivalent of the Cy Young, could honor a player who has a great year for a bad team and would also open up the MVP more for pitchers. It got no support.

As for doing away with the MVP, I disagree. I also think that if you can enjoy a debate about the value of a save or the value of small ball, you can certainly debate who was the most valuable player. But that’s just me.

Umpbump: Fair enough. We’ll agree to disagree. One last question: do you read blogs? And if so, which ones?

PH: As for blogs, I frankly don’t make a point of finding them. If I run across one or somebody brings one to my attention, of course I’ll read it.

UPDATE

Umpbump: Jimmy Rollins won the NL MVP. Who did you vote for?

PH: My top four, as I recall, were Rollins, Holliday, Fielder, Chipper Jones.

Umpbump: No David Wright?

PH: David Wright was not in the upper half. If it had been the Player of the Year Award, he wold have been.

The Gold Glove awards were handed out last week. And we had our say.

But you know who didn’t get to chime in? Chipper Jones!

Well, consider that remedied. Chipper this week tells AJC blogger David O’Brien that he was shocked that David Wright won the Gold Glove. Shocked!

“When I find out [Wright won] I was speechless, for quite some time,” Chipper said. “Certainly the guys with the least amount of errors and best fielding percentage quite obviously didn’t win it.”

That’s true, Chipper. You had nine errors. Wright had 21. Your fielding percentage was .971. Wright’s was .954.

But wait! This is the 21st century, after all. And we’ve developed new statistics. Like Bill James’ range factor. Chipper, your range factor was 2.51. Wright’s was 2.73.

And don’t forget about Zone Rating, the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive “zone”. Wright’s ZR was .771. Chipper’s was — wait a second — Chipper’s was higher! ZR = .797!

Chipper is right. Wright shouldn’t have won the Gold Glove.

Pedro Feliz (ZR=.852, RF=2.91, 11 E, .973 FPCT) should have.

And Chipper would be fine with that.

“I wouldn’t have been disappointed had someone like Feliz or Ramirez won it,” Jones said. “I’m a little confused by the final tally — that’s a head-scratcher for me.”

I’m gonna go ahead and agree with you, Chipper. Wright’s selection is a mystery.

You know what? Let’s not worry about it. Let the baby have his bottle. Wright may have a Gold Glove, but he’s also got an offseason full of questions to answer about the Mets’ epic collapse and the always possible A-Rod signing. That guy’s got it so tough he can’t even support cancer kids without getting shat on (and on, and on).

You? You’re playing golf with Smoltzy and Glavine and hanging out at Hooters. It’s good to be a gangsta.

As I’ve written on this site before, I am actually pretty positive on Alex Rodriguez, feeling that the pros of having the best offfensive player in the world outweigh the cons of having to call a douchebag your teammate. So reading Nick’s fun post about how the Mets are the most likely destination for A-Rod should make me all warm and fuzzy inside, shouldn’t it? Because on paper, I agree with him. There obviously aren’t many teams who can take on his contract so the Mets are already on a very short list of potential suitors. Add to that the unlikelihood that the Yankees would risk losing face after stating point blank that they will not bid on him in the open market, and the negative press that the Red Sox would receive if they were to show fan-favorite Mike Lowell the door after winning the World Series MVP, the list dwindles even more.

So why would it be a bad idea if the Mets went after Alex Rodriguez, knowing full well that they have a leg-up on signing him?

Well, where would they put him defensively? And what would this mean to a team that’s supposedly built around their two young stars - third-baseman David Wright and shortstop Jose Reyes? Let’s break it down:

Defense:

2007 was not a good defensive year for Alex Rodriguez. His fielding percentage (.965) wasn’t terrible, but his Revised Zone Rating (RZR) puts him at the bottom third at the hot corner. He can get away with these numbers if he remains a third baseman for a couple more years, but I’m already bracing myself to laugh at any columnist who thinks that A-Rod can play shortstop anymore. In my view, SS is the toughest position to play defensively aside from centerfield. With the abundance of right-handed hitters in MLB, this position requires the ability to cover far too much ground far too often for a guy like A-Rod. Yes, once upon a time, he was among the better defensive shortstops. But this was four full seasons and what looks like 50lbs ago (yes, I’m exaggerating probably).  Moreover, if you look at his Revised Zone Ratings for the past four years, those numbers have been going south annually. I simply cannot see Alex Rodriguez as a shortstop anymore. So the idea of moving the superior defensive skills of Jose Reyes to 2nd base (remember, the Mets tried this before when Kaz Mastui came to the States and failed miserably) seems simply out of the question.

PR

Even for me as a Met fan, I think that the PR-push that both David Wright and Jose Reyes received was a bit much, so I can only imagine how the rest of the country felt. But the fact remains - these two young players are supposed to be the faces of the franchise. The Mets have a collection of veterans who aren’t as easy to market due to their quiet demeanors (see Beltran, Carlos; Delgado, Carlos; and Alou, Moises) and thus are banking on Wright and Reyes to fill those roles. So what would this mean if A-Rod were to join them in Queens?

Back in spring training, Wright volunteered to move to 2nd base if A-Rod were Flushing-bound. And he received a good amount of criticism for this, prompting one team veteran to say “”(Wright’s) the guy we need to be the leader here, not A-Rod.”

Touche. And I agree. The Mets offense does not need Alex Rodriguez, and the Mets front office does not need to concentrate on scoring more runs. What they do need to think about is how to replace Tom Glavine and add to their bullpen despite a free agency pool that lacks any reliable arms. They also will probably need to find trade partners to obtain a catcher and a second-baseman. Wasting their time listening to Scott Boras is no way to get any of this done.

Comparisons may be odious. But dang it, they make great bar conversations. And few topics fuel debate more than comparing the inherent value/abilities of baseball players.

Since the American League Most Valuable Player in 2007 is ABSOLUTELY NOT UP FOR DEBATE (and if you somehow disagree with this absolute, you deserve a karate chop to the throat), we will move on to the National League MVP. Paul argues in favor of David Wright, while Coley touts the virtues of Matt Holliday.

PAUL SAYS:

Although the regular season has come and gone, it still seems that the general answer to the question “Who’s the NL MVP?” can vary daily. Simply put, there are far too many candidates. There’s Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins in Philadelphia. Chipper Jones had a tragically overlooked season for the Braves. There’s Prince Fielder for Milwaukee, Matt Holliday in Colorado, Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera for the Fish, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes in New York, and no MVP conversation is complete without mentioning Albert Pujols.

With so many candidates, I’m not going to bother going through each player’s credentials here. But I will explain why I feel that David Wright should be (but won’t be because putting numbers into context is too hard for BBWAA members to understand) your 2007 NL MVP.

The detractors will point to the fact (and perhaps fairly) that David Wright does not lead the league in anything that’s easy to compute. “Homeruns are the best a hitter can do, right? Then Wright can’t be the best because he only hit 30. And scoring runs are good too. He only brought home 103 of those!” But context, people, context!

Let’s begin with Park Factor. David Wright plays in the National League East – home of the pitcher’s park. Four of the five stadiums are disadvantageous to hitters. And looking at two ways to measure these things (at Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN), it appears that Shea may be the toughest of them all. This puts Wright at a severe disadvantage in terms of power numbers when compared to those who play in hitter’s parks such as Wrigley, Coors, Minute Maid, Great American, Chase, and Citizens Bank. Luckily for us, people far smarter than I have created ways to help equalize these numbers.

By now, I think most baseball fans have at least heard of things like Win Shares or VORP, either as respectable tools for evaluation or as the thing that’s destroying the very fiber of everything we’ve ever held dear. But as a quick recap, Win Shares was devised to calculate how much each individual player contributed (both offensively and defensively) to their team’s wins. Wright led the NL in Win Shares this year with 34, with Pujols behind him with 32. Basically, this means that Wright’s contributions to the Mets’ total number of wins outweighs that of any other player in the National League.

For VORP, Wright placed second behind Hanley Ramirez (who had an amazing offensive season) which is even more impressive once you consider that VORP does not calculate defensive value – an area that strongly divides Ramirez (arguably the worst defensive shortstop in MLB in 2007) and Wright (one of the best defensive 3rd baseman in the NL).

Then there’s Runs Created, another one of these wacky numbers made popular by Bill James, where we see literally how many runs scored were a direct result of each player’s offensive contributions. Wright leads the NL here too, barely over Miguel Cabrera (136 to 135), but again, when you take defense into account, Wright truly was the better player in 2007.

Lastly, Runs Above Average. This is a metric that figures out how many runs a player either created offensively or prevented defensively when compared to their positional peers. In 2007, David Wright was responsible for 73 Runs Above Average, which by far and away was tops in the NL (Pujols comes in second again with 60 RAA).

In 2007, David Wright did everything anyone could ask of him as an individual player. He hit for a very high average (.325), was one of the best at not making outs (.416 OBP), had 30 HRs and 34SBs (with an excellent stolen base success rate of 87%), hit with runners in scoring position (.310 AVG, .975 OPS), and played a very good 3rd base (he led all MLB 3rd baseman in the number of plays made outside of his zone. By a lot.). By pretty much all sabermetric measurements, David Wright was the best player in the 2007 National League.

COLEY SAYS:

Paul, I notice you’ve listed a lot of really good reasons why David Wright should be the NL MVP.

But I also notice you’ve omitted all the reasons why he shouldn’t. Like, for example, the fact that he played for the New York Mets.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Wright is featured on the cover of MLB 07 The Show. He has his own ESPN commercial. He has appeared on Total Request Live and Late Show with David Letterman. He is sponsored by Vitamin Water. New York Magazine called him “the perfect New York sports star”. Delta Air Lines has named an airplane after him. And he’s made of wax.

David Wright has hit five homeruns in the past 82 games. None in 2007 thus far.

Cue the backlash.

It’s really no secret that over the past half-season, David’s power numbers have been less than impressive. He has slugged a pedestrian .427, with 43 RBIs to go along with his five homeruns (one dinger per 60 at-bats). Some have blamed his surprising performance in the homerun derby over the All-Star break. Others, I’m sure, will blame his off-field commitments such as PR work, sponsorship appearances, and his efforts for his personal charity, the David Wright Foundation. Whatever the reason, David has not performed at the level his reputation would warrant, and it has not gone unnoticed.

The odd part of this is that his contact rate has not changed all that much. He is and has been at or above the 80% mark, so he’s not striking out any more often than he used to. Has he been unlucky? Well, not really. Roughly 36% of the balls he’s put into play has resulted in a hit (not counting homeruns), which actually is better than average. Is he being less patient? Hardly. So far this year, he’s seen 4.19 pitches per plate appearance, good enough for 17^th in MLB. He’s still hitting the ball in the air at a decent rate (albeit lower than his career average, but not a big enough difference to play a major factor). It’s just not clearing the wall. It also hasn’t helped that he hasn’t performed well with runners in scoring position thus far in 2007, with six strikeouts in 18ABs, which helps account for the .167 batting average in those situations. Hey, I know 18 ABs don’t tell you squat. But you try convincing the Mets fans who have begun to jeer him.

So why does he have a dismal isolated power of .072 in 2007?

The only logical answer I can think of (aside from the women who are attracted to young, single, athletic, rich, and good-looking guys who have a massive bachelor pad in the Flatiron District – but how many of those women can there be in NYC? Two? Four?) is that pitchers have adjusted. They’re keeping him off-balance on pitches low and away from him and he hasn’t been able to adjust to these changes. Pitchers know he can drive the ball over the wall in left. Unless he can maintain his balance on pitches away again, they have no reason to pound the ball inside.

Or maybe it’s the herpes (Please don’t sue me. I have so very little).