A little project I'm thinking of doing (HGM's Historical MVP/Cy Young Choices)

So, with no school, I've been pretty bored lately. I was thinking of, for no other reason than boredom, going through year-by-year and picking my picks for AL and NL MVP and Cy Young awards and assembling it into a spreadsheet to compare my choices to the BBWAA choices. I'd start in 2008 and work backwards. I'm probably going to do this regardless, but I was just wondering if anybody was interested in following along as I work through this or whatever.

I would follow along.

I'd certainly be interested. Especially if you give your reasoning for why you chose who you chose if it's different than the BBWAA pick.

I think it would be cool also if you went through and put the HOFers on tiers of how much you think they deserve to be in the HOF. Say something like tier 5 borderline and tier 1 being the elite of the elite. Not sure if you would have time for something like this but I would be interested in ti. Also if you do the HOF thing it would be cool to see who you would vote in to the HOF of the current players now and what tier you would rank them.

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Originally Posted by 200tang

I think it would be cool also if you went through and put the HOFers on tiers of how much you think they deserve to be in the HOF. Say something like tier 5 borderline and tier 1 being the elite of the elite. Not sure if you would have time for something like this but I would be interested in ti. Also if you do the HOF thing it would be cool to see who you would vote in to the HOF of the current players now and what tier you would rank them.

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If I were to do this, I'd much prefer to, instead, put my effort into being a good voter over at Baseball Think Factory's Hall of Merit. The time (and knowledge) needed for that, though, is beyond me.

:c

I've already posted my picks for this year's MVP/Cy Young, but here they are again.

AL MVP: Cliff Lee
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL Cy: Cliff Lee
NL Cy: Tim Lincecum

All that lines up with the BBWAA selections except for the AL MVP. In a year without a clear cut positional candidate, where a pitcher, such as Cliff Lee (and also Roy Halladay) put up extravagant numbers, I think it's certainly fair to award the MVP to the pitcher. Lee-Halladay were 1-2 on my ballot for our Sports Mogul Awards. Such years are rare, but I think 2008 was one of them.

Nice goin Cliff.

I know that a pitcher taking both awards is going to happen a few times when I do my own rankings, considering I consider pitchers fully for the MVP. I can think of one instance where it happened in real life where it won't happen in my choices (Dennis Eckersley) and one other instance where it will happen in my choices but didn't in real life (Dwight Gooden). That's just off the top of my head, though.

I actually did something sort of like this, but I did not save the data

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

I've already posted my picks for this year's MVP/Cy Young, but here they are again.

AL MVP: Cliff Lee
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL Cy: Cliff Lee
NL Cy: Tim Lincecum

All that lines up with the BBWAA selections except for the AL MVP. In a year without a clear cut positional candidate, where a pitcher, such as Cliff Lee (and also Roy Halladay) put up extravagant numbers, I think it's certainly fair to award the MVP to the pitcher. Lee-Halladay were 1-2 on my ballot for our Sports Mogul Awards. Such years are rare, but I think 2008 was one of them.

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Barring a 30 win season or Bob Gibson like season....will we ever see a pitcher MVP again?

I like the idea Houston... go for it

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Originally Posted by Pavelb1

Barring a 30 win season or Bob Gibson like season....will we ever see a pitcher MVP again?

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no

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Originally Posted by Pavelb1

Barring a 30 win season or Bob Gibson like season....will we ever see a pitcher MVP again?

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We almost did this year, so I am sure it will turn up again. If offensive levels stay like this or go lower, it will only be more likely.

But yea Houston, keep us informed on your project. I never finished mine, and the results should be interesting.

Have fun HGM!

Definitely.

Do it.

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Originally Posted by Pavelb1

Barring a 30 win season or Bob Gibson like season....will we ever see a pitcher MVP again?

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Barring a ridiculous amount of wins, or a ridiculous season from a closer (think more ridiculous than Eric Gagne's best), OR a massive change in the voting populace, no.

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Originally Posted by RedSoxRockies

We almost did this year, so I am sure it will turn up again.

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No, we didn't "almost" this year. Sabathia placed 6th but was not close at all.

Sounds interesting HGM... I'm guessing you won't be picking Zoilo Versailles as 1965 AL MVP :D

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Originally Posted by metsguy234

Sounds interesting HGM... I'm guessing you won't be picking Zoilo Versailles as 1965 AL MVP :D

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I haven't looked closely at it, but while Zoilo Versailles may be the worst player to ever win an MVP award, that doesn't mean that it wasn't deserved. He had an excellent season that year and it was a down year for the rest of the league.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

I haven't looked closely at it, but while Zoilo Versailles may be the worst player to ever win an MVP award, that doesn't mean that it wasn't deserved. He had an excellent season that year and it was a down year for the rest of the league.

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http://www.baseball-reference.com/aw...65.shtml#ALmvp

Most of the other guys on that voting list IMO would make better MVPs for that year (including Tony Conigliaro... no idea why he came in dead last)

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Originally Posted by metsguy234

http://www.baseball-reference.com/aw...65.shtml#ALmvp

Most of the other guys on that voting list IMO would make better MVPs for that year (including Tony Conigliaro... no idea why he came in dead last)

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You have to account for Zoilo being a shortstop and having a great season with the glove. WARP1 places him at 11.1. A random sampling of the other top MVP candidates:

Tony Coniglario: 6.6
Brooks Robinson: 7.3
Tony Oliva: 10.3
Rocky Colavito: 8.1
Carl Yastrzemski: 6.4


Now, obviously, that's just one stat, and only a handful of the league's players, so I might have a different answer once I dig into the numbers (which won't be for a while, as I'm working backwards), but a quick look leads me to believe that the voters got it right that year. Zoilo had an excellent year with the bat for a SS - 115 OPS+ - and combined it with great durability and excellent defense.

2007:

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP: David Wright
AL Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia
NL Cy Young: Jake Peavy

Only one disagreement again, this time with the NL MVP. The BBWAA awarded Jimmy Rollins the NL MVP award in 2007. At the time, I said it was because he held the best story, and I still stand by that. Had the non-David Wright Mets not sucked in September (when Wright was mashing the ball), David Wright would've likely taken home the hardware in real life. However, the BBWAA places undue "value" on teammate performance, and thus, Jimmy Rollins (who's in my top 10, but not my top 5) won. Wright combined excellent hitting (second to Hanley Ramirez in VORP) with fantastic hot corner defense (first in Fielding Runs Above Replacement amongst my group of contenders). He paced the group in Wins Above Replacement by nearly 1.5 wins (12 to Matt Holliday's 10.5). His combination of offense and defense at a skill position leads me to give him the 2007 MVP.

Yeah! Go David Wright :D

2006:

AL MVP: Derek Jeter
NL MVP: Albert Pujols
AL Cy: Johan Santana
NL Cy: Brandon Webb

So, I agreed on both the Cy Young's, but disagreed on both the MVP's. I had Brandon Webb slightly ahead of Roy Oswalt, and when I checked to see how the real life Cy voting came out, I was surprised to see that Trevor Hoffman nearly won! Now, Hoffman surely had a fine season, one of his best, but he got 12 first place votes, compared to Webb's 15, which I find absurd. Chris Carpenter got 2 of his own, and Oswalt got 3, but Carpenter placed 3rd ahead of Oswalt by a good margin. I guess this just goes to show that maybe the general populace is rapidly becoming smarter when it comes to closers. The poor showing of Francisco Rodriguez in the awards balloting, plus his relatively small contract (compared to what he was seeking) would confirm this.

At any rate, my disagreements with the MVPs. Justin Morneau nearly became a two-time MVP winner this year. While we're getting smarter when it comes to relievers, I think we're still stuck in the "RBI is king" mindset. Morneau, in both 2006 and 2008, was not the best player on his own team. That title goes to Joe Mauer, their All-Star catcher who gets on base a ton in front of Morneau, enabling Morneau to rack up nice RBI numbers. At any rate, Mauer wasn't my MVP, Derek Jeter was. He placed a close second in the real life voting. He had a phenomenal offensive season for a shortstop, and the numbers also say he had one of his better defensive seasons.

Over in the NL, Pujols has now gotten 2 of my 3 MVP awards. Ryan Howard had the nicer HR-RBI numbers, but Pujols had a higher OBP and SLG, as well as a significantly higher OPS+. Add that to the fact that Pujols is the best first basemen defensively in the league, while Howard is among the worst, and I think Pujols got ripped in that award by Howard (as he nearly did in 2008 as well!).

2005:

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP: Derrek Lee
AL Cy Young: Johan Santana
NL Cy Young: Roger Clemens

Only agreed on one award here, the AL MVP. In the NL, I love Pujols, but Lee just had a slightly better season. He had a slightly better bat, slightly better glove, about equal on the basepaths...Career year, but the most valuable player in the NL. The AL Cy Young going to Bartolo Colon was, in my opinion, a great travesty, and goes to show just how much the Win has a stranglehold on mainstream pitcher evaluation. The only statistic that Santana trailed Colon in was wins. In every meaningful statistic, Santana trounced Colon. He had a better ERA, ERA+, WHIP, more strikeouts, better VORP, better WARP, better EVERYTHING. Santana was the clear best pitcher in the AL, but because he didn't get wins, he lost out on the award (and actually placed 3rd, behind Mariano Rivera as well). In the NL, Chris Carpenter, Dontrelle Willis, and Roy Oswalt all had phenomenal seasons and racked up more innings than Roger Clemens, but the sheer quality of Roger's innings puts him ahead of them, in my opinion (I also have Andy Pettite slightly ahead of that group). Clemens had a 226 ERA+, Pettitte was at 177. Oswalt, Carpenter, and Willis had ERA+'s of 144, 151, and 149, respectively. It's a pretty significant gap, one that is not made up by 20-30 innings.

Ew, Yankees winning the HGM MVP award in 3 straight years.

2004:

AL MVP: Vladimir Guerrero
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL Cy: Johan Santana
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

Only one disagreement this year, with the NL Cy Young. Again, Roger Clemens having won it shows the overemphasize on wins and losses. Clemens went 18-4. Johnson went an ugly 16-14. So because the Diamondbacks were absolutely terrible (51-111 overall), Clemens was given the award for being a better pitcher, even though Randy Johnson tossed 30 more innings, had an ERA+ 30 points higher, struck out 70 more batters, walked 30 less batters, had a WHIP 26 points better, etc.

2003:

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL Cy: Roy Halladay
NL Cy: Eric Gagne

2003 was the toughest year for me to assess so far, but in the end, I wound up agreeing with all four of the BBWAA choices.

Off the top of my head, I didn't think I'd have any trouble with the two MVP awards. The NL, obviously, was a no-doubter, but the AL turned out tougher than I expected, largely due to a player nobody probably expects, that placed 10th in the real life voting...Bret Boone. Boone had a phenomenal year. I really struggled between him and A-Rod. Their value is much closer than it at first appears once you consider ballpark and defense...However, I felt that it'd bending over backwards with park factors to give the award to Boone, and eventually settled on A-Rod.

I also had quite a struggle with the AL Cy Young. At first glance, I chose Halladay. After examining the numbers a little closer, I changed my choice to Tim Hudson. After deeply looking into the numbers, I changed again to Esteban Loaiza. All the while, Pedro Martinez was lurking their with his ridiculous year on a per-inning basis, but never really entered the race stronger than that due to his lack of innings. Loaiza comes out surprisingly well in a number of stats, leading the pack in VORP, WARP1, and Pitching Runs Above Replacement. However, in the end, I couldn't look past Halladay's 266 innings and 9 complete games.

2003 Eric Gagne is the type of season I need to give a closer Cy Young consideration, and I think it was a fantastic enough season to give him the award outright. Jason Schmidt and Mark Prior both had excellent seasons, no doubt, but Gagne led them in Win Probability Added, and just had silly numbers.

2002:

AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL Cy: Pedro Martinez
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

Two agreements, two disagreements. The MVP award going to Miguel Tejada over Alex Rodriguez in real life is another piece of evidence in the way that the BBWAA places a premium on teammate performance. A-Rod and Tejada both man the same position, and A-Rod literally did EVERYTHING better than him. But, alas, Tejada had the support of the Big Three, while A-Rod was supported by crap, so that means Tejada did more to help Oakland win than A-Rod did to help Texas win.

The AL Cy Young caused me some grief. I wavered between Pedro and Derek Lowe. Lowe has an innings advantage (as does Barry Zito, but Lowe has a significant edge in quality over Zito), but I have to give it to Pedro on the back of the sheer quality of his pitching.

Thank you HGM! I've been waiting for Pedro's 2002 Cy Young for years! Now how many more is he going to win? :D

2001:

AL MVP: Jason Giambi
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL Cy: Mike Mussina
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

Two disagreements, again both in the AL. I guess it's really hard for the BBWAA to screw it up when Barry Bonds is OPSing 15 thousand and Randy Johnson is striking out every batter he faces. :p

Ichiro Suzuki won the 2001 AL MVP, a testament more to his coming over from Japan and taking the MLB by storm than to his value. I have Bret Boone has the Most Valuable Mariner of the year, and second to Jason Giambi in the AL MVP race. Giambi had a ridiculous offensive season, and nobody in the AL was particularly close.

The AL Cy Young had some interesting names enter the discussion, such as Joe Mays and Freddy Garcia. Roger Clemens won the BBWAA award because of his pretty 20-3 record. However, he was pretty clearly behind a few pitchers in terms of actual pitching quality. Mays paced the AL in ERA+ with 145. Mussina led with a 10.6 WARP, and wasn't behind Mays by much in ERA+, with a 142 in just 5 less innings. Mussina also leads in Win Probability Added. Add that all up, and I have Mussina edging out a very tight group of contenders (Mays, Garcia, Mark Mulder, Mark Buerhle, and Clemens).

I cant wait until you get to the early 90's :)

2000:

AL MVP: Pedro Martinez (Originally had Jason Giambi. Below discussion was what I originally had)
NL MVP: Jeff Kent
AL Cy: Pedro Martinez
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

No disagreements here, but the AL was a REAL toughie for me. Pedro Martinez had a ridiculous season (again), and I really wanted to give him both the MVP and the Cy Young, but I saw his overall value close enough to Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Carlos Delgado that I could barely fit a hair through the difference, so I deferred to a position player. I originally had given my award to Alex Rodriguez, because he paced Giambi in WARP by nearly 3 wins...However, I looked closer, and Giambi and A-Rod both had nearly identical seasons in 2001 as they did in 2000, and in 2001, I saw Giambi as the winner. I realized that the reason A-Rod was coming out ahead of Giambi by such a large margin in 2000, but didn't in 2001, was because of the Fielding Runs stat, which saw A-Rod as a world class defender in 2000, but average in 2001. I don't like putting my full faith in one stat, especially one as shaky as Fielding Runs, so I changed my mind. It's certainly possible that A-Rod had a fluke defensive season in 2000 and was excellent. Players can have fluke seasons in the field just as they can at the plate. However, I don't know...I just didn't feel satisfied handing the award out based on that, so I reverted to Giambi, giving him back-to-back HGM MVP awards.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

So, with no school, I've been pretty bored lately. I was thinking of, for no other reason than boredom, going through year-by-year and picking my picks for AL and NL MVP and Cy Young awards and assembling it into a spreadsheet to compare my choices to the BBWAA choices. I'd start in 2008 and work backwards. I'm probably going to do this regardless, but I was just wondering if anybody was interested in following along as I work through this or whatever.

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you have waaayyy too much time on your hands.

Hey - baseball is a great hobby. HGM is obviously very much into the sport, stats, sabermetrics...sounds like a great thing to do with your time. It beats just playing a shooter video game, or doing drugs, or just watching the tube. Give him credit for findnig an interesting and constructive use of his free time.

Personally I would play a video game, or read a classic, or write/play music - but those are my hobbies, and everyone has different ones. If I had spent my formative years actually using my brain instead of just watching Gilligan's Island - well, I might be even smarter and better off than I am now. So hats off to your love of all things baseball, and your choice of endeavor.

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Originally Posted by Alloutwar

Hey - baseball is a great hobby. HGM is obviously very much into the sport, stats, sabermetrics...sounds like a great thing to do with your time. It beats just playing a shooter video game, or doing drugs, or just watching the tube. Give him credit for findnig an interesting and constructive use of his free time.

Personally I would play a video game, or read a classic, or write/play music - but those are my hobbies, and everyone has different ones. If I had spent my formative years actually using my brain instead of just watching Gilligan's Island - well, I might be even smarter and better off than I am now. So hats off to your love of all things baseball, and your choice of endeavor.

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Oh i'm not knocking him although i could have ellaborated a bit more. Its great he's that dedicated to the research.

I will say this though for Houston and everyone else. I too was a sports junkie throughout highschool and into my early 20's. It consumed me, I was very much into stats and the like and even today as I am now 30 I still watch a great deal of sports and am the first pick when choosing teams for trivial pursuit.

However......from my experience I strongly recommend you find something productive to take up at least some of that time, and by productive I guess this is the best way to put it. Playing 'trival pursuit' last new years eve with some close friend, one of the girls said to me "its amazing how much useless information is in your brain" after I nailed some tough old sports trivia questions. It made me realize she was RIGHT! The information is quite useless to me now as a 30 year old with a kid (and another on the way, just found out a couple days ago!!).

You can't get the time digesting useless information back. Its fun as a 'hobby' but let it be just that. Don't let it consume you. If you realistically have a shot and are pursuing something in sports entertainment, commentary, etc....than I can see how this is a great way to spend your time. If not....I do think you should ask the point, and if you too will wish you had the time back 12 years from now.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

The AL Cy Young had some interesting names enter the discussion, such as Joe Mays and Freddy Garcia. Roger Clemens won the BBWAA award because of his pretty 20-3 record. However, he was pretty clearly behind a few pitchers in terms of actual pitching quality. Mays paced the AL in ERA+ with 145. Mussina led with a 10.6 WARP, and wasn't behind Mays by much in ERA+, with a 142 in just 5 less innings. Mussina also leads in Win Probability Added. Add that all up, and I have Mussina edging out a very tight group of contenders (Mays, Garcia, Mark Mulder, Mark Buerhle, and Clemens).

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Ah, the incomparable Joe Mays. He was never the same.

I'll just say this - information and knowledge is never "useless" in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

I'll just say this - information and knowledge is never "useless" in my opinion.

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well, one of the many questions I answered that led to the comment "its amazing how much useless information you have in your brain" was, "Who was in the 1998-99 NBA championship series. I was pretty confident and right about the Spurs beating the Knicks. I can't tell you how useless that information is in my life (other than trival pursuit i guess?)

Anyhow....i was just giving a personal experience story. Merry Xmas.;)

Merry Xmas and congrats on the second child on the way dickay. As to your point re: certain pursuits being more "useful" than others, that's a judgment call and your entitled to it. From where I sit though baseball is more than a pursuit or a hobby for Houston. It's a passion and one which he is very capable of not only articulating very well, but researching very well. From his posts on other subjects it would appear that he's very well rounded (and grounded) at a very young age. I recall in my teens and early to mid twenties thinking my baseball nerdiness was not "cool" and drifting away from it, but if something's in your blood you will either drift back into it or ignore a large part of yourself. Some people are passionate about sailing or cars or religion or music or math or literature. Houston is passionate about baseball and music (and probably other things) from what I can tell. His passions are not harming him or anyone else as far as I know. I'd be far more worried about him if he didn't have any passions, but that doesn't seem to be an issue.

I remember a great biology teacher I had in grade 9, who it was obvious had a passion for science. Early on in the year he opined about why it was that so many of his students couldn't retain or recall information for tests and exams, but at the drop of a hit could recite the stats of their favourite athletes in their favourite sports. He said it was because they had a passion for these sports and that in order to succeed academically students had to develop this same passion for their studies.

Perhaps the reason you are such a good trivial pursuit player is because you have a passion for sports which enables you to easily recall "trivial" facts from yesteryear without much effort. This whole categorizing of pursuits and hobbies on a spectrum of useful to useless is poppycock. The only determining factor when it comes to deciding your hobbies and pursuits should be how much you love them, or how much they resonate with you and you with them, not how useful they are or what higher purpose they serve. Please don't take this the wrong way, but why are you letting someone else separate the useful hobbies and pursuits from the useless ones for you? Why not follow these interests and share them with your kids?