In this week’s Metro column, I boldly made the following claim:

[Manny] Ramirez is arguably the best active player to have never received an MVP award. He’s certainly the best active player to be so consistently snubbed; of similar players, he has the fewest top-five finishes without ever finishing in the top two.

But of course, Manny is far from the only great active player to never take home the trophy, and while I was cogitating about this column, I got to talking about these players with my co-conspirators here at UmpBump. We bandied about some other names of active players who have, amazingly enough, never won an MVP: Gary Sheffield and Jim Thome lead the pack, in my mind, and you could make a case for perennially beloved also-rans Derek Jeter and David Ortiz as well.

Sure, there are fantastic younger guys who haven’t won the trophy yet. But when it comes to the David Wrights, Chase Utleys, and Hanley Ramirezes of baseball, one can say, “Hey, he’s still young.” And there are deserving players who are always a long shot to take home the hardware simply by virtue of their position; most pitchers and designated hitters suffer this fate. (I’ve included Ortiz here on my list of snubs because a) yes, I’m a Red Sox fan and this is my list, you jerks and b) he’s finished in the top 5 of the MVP balloting for the past four years running—a neat trick for any player, even more so considering the entrenched bias among many members of the BBWAA against voting for a full-time DH.)

But with the Sheffs and the Mannys and the Thomes, it’s a different story. You can’t necessarily point to a certain year and say, “This is the year he deserved to win,” but you’re still surprised to learn he’s never gotten the trophy.

Of active players, who do you think is the biggest MVP snub? Anyone going to take a stand for Todd Helton? Or Mike Piazza, still technically active? Any secret Carlos Delgado fans out there?

Who gets your vote?

more at twiigs.com…

Jimmy Rollins is your 2007 NL MVP. We’ve already told you who we think should have won. Here’s what all the other blogs are saying about J-Ro.

• The 700 Level is predictably giddy.
• Today was “Jimmy Rollins Day” at Bugs and Cranks. Seriously.
• Vegas Watch is incredulous.

“Four of the voters didn’t have Wright on their ballot. Four people, whose job it is to write about baseball, did not think that David Wright was one of the ten most valuable players in the National League.”

• Joe Sheehan blogged on both Baseball Prospectus and SI that the MVP Award has morphed into the Most Valuable Copy Award. He thinks David Wright should have won.
• The ESPN writers mostly picked Rollins.
• Mets Blog thinks the baseball writers were correct and that the Mets’ collapse should cost Wright. I didn’t expect that.

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 »

Last week I cast my vote for Jimmy Rollins for NL MVP. And then Paul cast his vote for, well, pretty much anybody not named Jimmy Rollins.

Today, Philadelphia Inquirer beat writers Bob Ford and Phil Sheridan weigh in on whether or not Rollins is a legitimate contender. You can view the video debate here.

NOTE: I haven’t yet heard this video. I don’t have speakers on my work computer. So I can’t vouch for the value of what these two guys have to say. But Ford and Sheridan are usually pretty good and I thought it would be interesting to see share what the Philly media thinks of J-Ro.

I couldn’t stay quiet. Not after the Phillies swept the Mets AGAIN - this time at Shea. But  Coley’s steadfast endorsement of Jimmy Rollins for MVP absolutely wreaks of homer-ism This is not a reference to the idiocy of Homer Simpson, but rather, the disease that plagues 99.99% (yes, this includes me) of baseball fans - the inability to properly judge the players on the teams for which you root.

I believe that there are 12 hitters in the National League who have had MVP-calibre seasons individually - Chipper Jones, Hanley Ramirez, Jimmy Rollins, Matt Holliday, Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, David Wright, Carlos Lee, Eric Byrnes, Jose Reyes, Prince Fielder, and Carlos Beltran. Rollins does certainly come out looking pretty good even among this bunch:

In the above chart, “Rk” stands for rank, comparing among the dozen players how each of them fare within those categories. Rollins is Top-5 in four categories - Runs, Strikeouts, Total Bases, and Stolen Bases. But look at Matt Holliday. He’s Top-5 in seven. Or David Wright, who is Top-5 in six. So Rollins doesn’t have the most balanced numbers among them.

What Rollins is heads-and-shoulders above his competition in is the number of times he has crossed home plate. His 127 Runs Scored is best in the NL, leading Hanley Ramirez by 12. But how is it that Rollins has this distinction with the lowest OBP among the dozen players (.346)? I’m sure that his number of extra-base hits and stolen bases has a good deal to do with this. But I’m just as sure that having Ryan Howard and Chase Utley behind you doesn’t hurt either. Moreover, look at the column for “ABs”. Despite playing in only three more games than his nearest competitor, Jose Reyes, Rollins has 38 more at-bats which sounds like a lot to me.

In fact, I checked the list of players who had led the NL in Runs Scored over a full season and found something that would make a good trivia question: When is the last time that a player has led the NL in Runs Scored while having a lower OBP than Jimmy Rollins (.346)? The answer is Glenn Beckert of the Chicago Cubs, who accomplished the feat all the way back in 1968, scoring 98 times despite having an OBP of .326. Suffice to say, the general rule of thumb is that in order to score runs, you need to get on base. It’s very unusual for a player like Rollins to lead the league.

Which got me wondering, in what other categories has Rollins benefited from his number of at-bats? I know this isn’t exactly scientific, but for kicks, I projected the numbers for each of the 12 MVP candidates if they too had equaled Rollins’ 656 At-Bats:

Rollins doesn’t look very special in this light. He still keeps up with his peers, but he’s now only Top-5 in two categories.  Now I know this chart assumes that each player performs just as they have throughout the season, but I think the point can still be made. While this certainly does not change how much Rollins has contributed on the field - let’s face it, the guy’s been tremendous - but this does help put things into perspective. He’s performed exceptionally well, but he has also received more opportunities to do so than anyone else.

And if you need more proof, Rollins is ninth in Win Shares with 23 (behind David Wright who has 30) and is also ninth in VORP (behind Hanley Ramirez).

Jimmy Rollins has played at an MVP-level for certain. But when you compare him to his peers, he’s just middle-of-the-pack. To be fair, there’s still two weeks of baseball to be played. With the race for NL MVP so tight, I can be convinced otherwise.

It’s a crowded race for NL MVP this season. A lot of deserving candidates. Prince Fielder is leading the league in homers and helping keep the Brewers in contention. David Wright has been a monster down the stretch for the first place Mets. The only knock on Miguel Cabrera is that he plays for the Marlins. And Chipper Jones — I can’t believe I’m saying this — has been a hitting machine.

The Phillies have three guys who should all receive votes. Ryan Howard, last year’s MVP, is second in the league in RBI with 115 and third in HR with 38. Chase Utley is leading the league in doubles and number of times hit by a pitch. He’s second in batting average and if he hadn’t missed a month of the season with a broken hand, he’d be well over 100 RBI. As it is, he has 96.

But I’m ready to call the race today for Phillies short stop Jimmy Rollins, who has quite simply walked the walk this season.

You can measure Rollins’ value in a lot of different ways. Consider this:

A few weeks ago, a lot was made of Curtis Granderson joining the 20-20-20-20 club. Granderson became the third player EVER to hit 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 homers and steal 20 bases in a season.

Rollins is now one triple away from joining Granderson in the 20-20-20-20 club. Moreover, he’s only one triple and three homers away from joining the 30-30-30-20 club. That, my friends, is what we baseball insiders call “totally badass”.

And there’s this:

At the beginning of the season Rollins said that, based on the Phils’ offseason moves, he thought they were the team to beat. The Mets were offended. The media took the quote and ran with it. Nobody dared let Jimmy forget what he said.

How has Rollins responded? Obviously, he’s had a tremendous season. But he’s saved his best for the big games. Going into today’s game, Rollins had hit .355 against the mets this season, with 7 sb, 6 HR and 14 RBI.

Not bad, right?

But it’s more than just numbers. Rollins has gotten in the Mets’ heads. Yesterday, Rollins won the game with a 2 RBI triple, which was misplayed by Carlos Beltran. Today, the Mets made errors in each of Rollins’ first three at bats. First, he walked, stole second and advanced to third on a LoDuca throwing error. In his next at bat, Jose Reyes booted a grounder. In his third at bat, Moises Alou dropped a fly ball.

It his fourth at bat, the Mets didn’t make an error. But Jimmy did hit an RBI single to right field.

Jimmy Rollins owns the Mets. And he’s been pretty good against the other teams, too.

This season, Rollins talked the talk. And then he walked the walk. And that’s why he should be your NL MVP.

Have you ever seen a professional athlete morph from silent slugger to whiny little bitch faster than Albert Pujols has?

First, Pujols criticized Mets Pitcher Tom Glavine after the ace shut down Pujols and the Cards in this year’s NLCS game 1.

“He wasn’t good. He wasn’t good at all,” Pujols said of Glavine, who threw seven innings of four-hit ball for the victory.

Then he criticized the scout who discovered him, saying the reason the Cardinals fired him was because he never believed in Pujols.

Now Pujols is whining that he should have won the NL MVP instead of Phillies 1B Ryan Howard.

“I see it this way: Someone who doesn’t take his team to the playoffs doesn’t deserve to win the MVP,” Pujols said in Spanish at a news conference organized by the Dominican Republic’s sports ministry.

Howard’s Phillies finished in second place in the NL East, way behind the Mets, and just barely missed out on the NL wild card. Pujols’ Cardinals won the NL Central and went on to win the World Series. Which is not to say that the Cardinals were very good during the regular season. In fact, the Phils won two more games than the Cards this year. Meanwhile, once he got his team to the playoffs, Pujols preceeded to fall off the face of the earth, going hitting only .200 in the World Series (3 for 15). Way to go, MVP.

Twins fans (and especially Jeter-hating Red Sox fans) Rejoice!

From the ESPN wire:

MORNEAU EDGES JETER FOR AL MVP AWARD

First baseman Justin Morneau, whose clutch hitting helped the Minnesota Twins overcome a 12-game deficit in mid-July to go on and win the American League Central title, was elected Most Valuable Player in a tight race with New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter in balloting by the BBWAA.

Morneau, who batted .321 with 34 home runs and 130 runs batted in, was named first on 15 of the 28 ballots cast by two writers from each league city, second on eight, third on three and fourth on two to total 320 points, based on a tabulation system that rewards 14 points for first place, nine for second, eight for third on down to one for 10th.

Jeter, who was second in the league in batting with a .343 average and had 214 hits, 118 runs, 97 RBI and 34 stolen bases, was listed first on 12 ballots, second on 14, fourth on one and sixth on one to score 306 points. The other first-place vote went to Twins pitcher Johan Santana (19-6, 2.77 ERA, 245 strikeouts in 233 ? innings), who placed seventh overall with 114 points. Read the rest of this entry »

So the Rookie of the Year awards have been handed out and Justin Verlander and Hanley Ramirez are the lucky winners.

For those of you keeping score at home, that means Alejandro is 2-0, having accurately predicted the ROTY winners, while Sarah, Nick and I are 1-1 (Sarah and Nick correctly guessing that Verlander would win but missing on Ramirez, while I got Ramirez right but guessed Liriano would win the AL award).

For the record, we weren’t picking who we thought would win the awards, but who should win the awards, so it’s no big deal to get a pick wrong.

I picked Albert Pujols for MVP, because I think he should win. But I’m pretty sure Ryan Howard is going to win. Certainly, if the ESPN sports reporters are any indication, he will. Of the 18 ESPN writers, 11 voted for Howard, six voted for Pujols and one voted for Beltran.

Howard was a monster in Japan last week. So maybe the ESPN guys know what they’re talking about. Then again, not one of them picked the Tigers to beat the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. Not ONE.