First pitch is two days away, so now's as good a time as any to do a quick set of predictions for this season. You can find predictions online from Fangraphs, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, SBNation, Baseball Prospectus.
For mine, I'm going to try to guess final standings (without records), and some major awards. Will there be some bias? Maybe, but why not predict the teams you root for, especially when they have a good chance. American League East - Toronto Blue Jays Central - Cleveland Indians West - Houston Astros Wild Card - Kansas City Royals Wild Card - Tampa Bay Rays National League East - New York Mets Central - Chicago Cubs West - San Francisco Giants Wild Card - Washington Nationals Wild Card - Pittsburgh Pirates World Series Toronto Blue Jays vs San Francisco Giants Is this a biased pick? Absolutely. But ESPN had 6 of 31 experts pick the Giants to make it, and 8 picked the Blue Jays, including Jayson Stark who picked this exact matchup (and he thinks the Jays will win it). Champion San Francisco Giants Sorry to my Jays fan friends, but if both of these teams get this far as currently constituted, I believe in the Giants pitching a little more (ok, a fair bit more). But I also wouldn't be surprised if it were the Blue Jays in this scenario, I feel like it would be a 6 or 7 game series. Awards American League Most Valuable Player - Mike Trout - Los Angeles Angels - It's not exactly gripping analysis to pick the best player in the game, but there's a good chance he doesn't actually win the award because his team may not be a playoff team, and that seems to be held against him (when, imagine them without him). National League Most Valuable Player - Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals - I think these two guys are going to be winning a lot of these as they go. I wanted to pick somebody like Buster Posey, but Harper is 23 years old and terrifying. Trout, by the way, is 14 months older than Harper. Neither is going away anytime soon. American League Cy Young Award - Chris Archer - Tampa Bay Rays - If I have the Rays making the playoffs, Archer and the pitching staff would be a big reason why. He's a fairly popular pick on the major websites too, though Chris Sale is probably even more popular, and it's easy to see why. On the Jays, could Stroman win it? Maybe. Apparently Pedro Martinez thinks he's that good. National League Cy Young Award - Madison Bumgarner - San Francisco Giants - Damn right I went there. I mean, this award is probably Clayton Kershaw's to lose, but sometimes voters get tired of that (sometimes), sometimes guys just have a slightly off (for them) year... Max Scherzer is also a popular choice, and Jose Fernandez would be a not that shocking dark horse. American League Rookie of the Year - Byron Buxton - Minnesota Twins - Another popular choice, he's been a top (#1 or #2 prospect) for a couple of years now, and is about ready to make good. A lot of people have the Twins with the top three favourites for this award, in Buxton, Byung-Ho Park, and Jose Berrios. They might be bigtime contenders in about 2018. National League Rookie of the Year - Corey Seager - Los Angeles Dodgers - A fairly overwhelming favourite, and Keith Law's number 1 prospect this year. I think the Dodgers have just enough regression in them this year, but they won't be missing for long, not with that team and that budget. Two more days!
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I had originally planned on doing something related to this back when I wrote up other awards, but the playoffs sort of took over. And then, a useful thing happened. MLB announced top 3 finalists at all positions, making the heavy lifting research a little bit easier.
There was a conversation on Twitter the other day, and I can't remember the exact participants, but it was brought up that Gold Gloves are a pretty overrated award because of some of the people who have won them (more on that in a minute). This is too bad, somebody said, because as a name, they're a pretty great concept. And somebody else mentioned that it would be a fun way to describe somebody like Adam Everett as a gold glove shortstop who never actually won a Gold Glove. Why are Gold Gloves overrated? The voting for Gold Gloves is done by managers and coaches in each league (who can't vote for players on their own team). As of a few years ago, 25% of the voting/ranking is based on SABR fielding metrics. The problem with coaches and managers voting was that a lot of guys got by on just reputation. For example (a now famous example for baseball fans), Raphael Palmeiro won the Gold Glove for 1st Base in 1999, as he had in 1997 and 1998. Not that controversial. Except for the minor detail that he had played 28 games at 1st Base in 1999, and 128 as a designated hitter. Derek Jeter also famously won 5 Gold Gloves at shortstop despite providing negative value on the field in most of those seasons. Moving on though, lets agree that they're a fun sounding award, but, like most awards, don't always mean much. American League first, then National League. I'll make a lot of reference to the Fielding Bible who does awards for each position, though does not split by leagues. They also add a utility player (Ender Inciarte of the Arizona Diamondbacks). My choice will be highlighted. Also, apologies as this is going to have a lot of stats in it. If that's not your thing, be warned. Feel free to Youtube some of these guys (especially Andrelton Simmons, Kevin Kiermaier, Kevin Pillar, Mike Trout, Nolan Arenado, Brandon Crawford...) American League P - Mark Buehrle (Blue Jays), Sonny Gray (A's), Dallas Keuchel (Astros) According to the Fielding Bible, Dallas Keuchel had the second best total of defensive runs saved by a pitcher since they began measuring the statistic. He added 13 runs of value (remember, 10 runs is roughly 1 win) just with his glove. That makes this an easy choice. C - Jason Castro (Astros), Russell Martin (Blue Jays), Salvador Perez (Royals) I went to Fangraphs and StatCorner's catcher report for this one. I looked at runs saved by framing and defensive runs saved (DRS - used by the Fielding Bible). When they were added up, Martin saved 1.7 runs, Perez was 4.1 runs below average (-4.1), but both were way behind Jason Castro at 16.9 runs. By StatCorner's measurements, he was the 7th best pitch framing catcher for total work on the year. He was above average in all 4 of those categories too, which neither Martin nor Perez could say. 1B - Eric Hosmer (Royals), Mike Napoli (Rangers), Mark Teixeira (Yankees) Though Napoli played in only 899 innings at 1B, that was actually only about 15 innings fewer than Teixeira played (and 455 fewer than Hosmer). However, he had 3 DRS (vs 5 for Teixeira and just 1 for Hosmer) and a 4.4 Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR - Fangraphs preferred defensive metric) vs 1.0 for Hosmer and 0.4 for Teixeira. Interestingly, by DRS, the top 6 defensive first basemen all played in the National League this year. 2B - Jose Altuve (Astros), Brian Dozier (Twins), Ian Kinsler (Tigers) Kinsler was the Fielding Bible award winner for best overall 2B in the majors. At 19 DRS, which was 6 more than second place (and 11 more than second best in the AL), it's easy to see why. He also paced the AL in UZR and UZR/150 games (a common way of equalizing playing time). 3B - Adrian Beltre (Rangers), Evan Longoria (Rays), Manny Machado (Orioles) A long time fielding legend, Beltre can still pick it at age 36. He led the AL in DRS by 4 over Manny Machado (who will probably win a lot of these in his career) and had the best UZR in baseball. SS - Xander Bogaerts (Red Sox), Alcides Escobar (Royals), Didi Gregorious (Yankees) Francisco Lindor actually led the AL in DRS this year as a shortstop, but because of the rule made when Raphael Palmeiro won (must play at least 100 games), he was not eligbile. He also led in UZR (and by UZR/150 was the best SS in all of baseball). But again, not eligible. The best of the eligible players by both measures was Gregorious. LF - Yoenis Cespedes (Tigers - partial), Brett Gardner (Yankees), Alex Gordon (Royals) By DRS, Cespedes was actually the second best LF in baseball this year (and by far the best by UZR). The problem is that he split his season between two leagues. Alex Gordon has won 4 in a row in LF, and he outdid Gardner in both UZR and DRS by a pretty good margin. CF - Kevin Kiermaier (Rays), Kevin Pillar (Blue Jays), Mike Trout (Angels) Jays fans who watched Pillar play great defense all year won't like this choice, but here's the thing. Pillar had a very good season, with 14 DRS (actually 4th in the AL, but hold on), and 14.0 UZR (3rd in the AL). What's surprising is that Mike Trout was nominated despite Lorenzo Cain having much better stats than him, but he is pretty good. Kiermaier, on the other hand, had 42 DRS (the highest ever measured), and a UZR 0f 30.0. He more than doubled every other CF in the major leagues with those totals, and was worth (by Fangraphs) 32 runs for his defense alone. He also apparently saved 65 bases on cutting down potential doubles and triples, per Fielding Bible research. Sorry, I can't argue with that. He was also the unanimous recipient of the Fielding Bible Award for CF. This is a prime argument for returning to the system of 3 outfielders (given that, as many have argued, left and right fielders are often guys who aren't fast enough for center field). RF - Kole Calhoun (Angels), J.D. Martinez (Tigers), Josh Reddick (A's) By DRS, the 4 best right fielders in baseball are in the NL. By UZR, Calhoun is the second best right fielder in baseball, and easily led the American League, as well as being the slight leader in DRS. National League P - Jake Arrieta (Cubs), Gerrit Cole (Pirates), Zack Greinke (Dodgers) Greinke led in DRS by being the only one of the three to have positive value in preventing stolen bases vs the average pitcher (Arrieta was 3 runs below average, Cole was 2 runs below average, while Greinke was 2 runs above average). This swung the totals in his favour. C - Yadier Molina (Cardinals), Buster Posey (Giants), Wilson Ramos (Nationals) Posey was also the Fielding Bible Award winner this year, as he tied with Ramos in DRS, but was ahead of him in framing runs by over 18 runs (+15.2 for Posey, -2.1 for Ramos). At 28 (and already with an MVP award, a batting title, and 3 World Series rings), this kid might have a future in the big leagues. Molina had 7 DRS and 5.7 framing runs, yet another strong season for him. 1B - Brandon Belt (Giants), Paul Goldschmidt (Diamondbacks), Adrian Gonzalez (Dodgers) Goldschmidt won the Fielding Bible award as he almost doubled the second place finishers in DRS (18 to 10 for both Gonzalez and Belt). By UZR, Belt was a bit better, but maybe not enough to make up that advantage. 2B - Dee Gordon (Marlins), DJ LeMahieu (Rockies), Brandon Phillips (Reds) Gordon easily led the National League in DRS, though trailed two men who played in far fewer innings in UZR (Danny Espinosa and Addison Russell). He graded out significantly higher than LeMahieu and Phillips in both metrics. 3B - Nolan Arenado (Rockies), Matt Duffy (Giants), Todd Frazier (Reds) Though the Giants fan in me wants to pick Matt Duffy (and UZR says that would be a valid choice), a big lead in DRS and a Fielding Bible award suggest that Arenado is probably dezerving of this. He also made 74 out of zone plays vs 56 for Duffy. Frazier actually beat Arenado in UZR as well, but trailed both by quite a bit in DRS. SS - Brandon Crawford (Giants), Adeiny Hechavarria (Marlins), Andrelton Simmons (Braves) Simmons is now a 3-time unanimous Fielding Bible award winner at shortstop. He led the league comfortably in DRS and UZR, and made tons of highlight reel plays. He is being talked about at age 26 as being potentially one of the greatest fielding shortstops of all time if he keeps this up. LF - Starling Marte (Pirates), Justin Upton (Padres), Christian Yelich (Marlins) Marte was tied for 3rd among all outfielders in DRS behind Kiermaier and Ender Inciarte (mentioned above), and was worth 9 runs for his arm in particular. He trailed Yoenis Cespedes in UZR, but doesn't have to compete with him in this league. CF - Billy Hamilton (Reds), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), A.J. Pollock (Diamondbacks) Pollock led the National League in DRS, 6 ahead of Hamilton, and made 104 out of zone plays, trailing only Lorenzo Cain and Kevin Pillar. He cost himself runs with his arm, but made up for it with all around play otherwise. Hamilton had a big UZR lead, so he might be a good argument here too. RF - Curtis Granderson (Mets), Bryce Harper (Nationals), Jason Heyward (Cardinals) The Fielding Bible award for RF for the third time, and now with 6 straight years of double digit DRS, he nearly doubled second place, and scored a huge 20.2 UZR. He made more out of zone plays than any other right fielder (with 100). Another pretty easy choice. Summary P - Dallas Keuchel (Houston - AL), Zack Greinke (Los Angeles - NL) C - Jason Castro (Houston - AL), Buster Posey (San Francisco - NL) 1B - Mike Napoli (Boston, Texas - AL), Paul Goldschmidt (Arizona - NL) 2B - Ian Kinsler (Detroit - AL), Dee Gordon (Miami - NL) 3B - Adrian Beltre (Texas - AL), Nolan Arenado (Colorado - NL) SS - Didi Gregorious (New York - AL), Andrelton Simmons (Atlanta - NL) LF - Alex Gordon (Kansas City - AL), Starling Marte (Pittsburgh - NL) CF - Kevin Kiermaier (Tampa Bay - AL), A.J. Pollock (Arizona - NL) RF - Kole Calhoun (Anaheim - AL), Jason Heyward (St. Louis - NL) I'll be back maybe tomorrow with some thoughts on the end of Grantland and some favourite stories. Thanks for reading. Let's have a little fun here. This has been one of the best seasons for rookies in quite some time, and we could be looking back at some all-time talents in the future. Unlike in the last one, I won't pick on "worst of" for this category, it doesn't really seem sporting. Stats should be as of September 26, and we'll go top 3 this time.
American League - Position Player (minimum 300 PA)
Lindor
National League - Position Player (minimum 300 PA)
Kris Bryant should be the no-doubt Rookie of the Year, and may even get some down-ballot MVP votes. And why not? He has power, can field at multiple positions. Even the folks at MLB.com seem to agree. Some more award categories eventually, but I may do some other posts in the meantime as well. I was intending to do separate categories for the pitchers as well, but there are a lot that are really close together, and it's kind of drawing straws to come up with the candidates. For what it's worth, I think these should be the winners: AL - Lance McCullers (2.7 fWAR, 2.4 rWAR, 1.96 WARP- 114.2 IP, 3.22 ERA, 3.18 FIP) NL - Noah Syndergaard (3.0 fWAR, 2.0 rWAR, 2.45 WARP - 143.0 IP, 3.34 ERA, 3.28 FIP) By the way, all of the highlighted links are to videos, there are lots more of each player, I just chose a few highlights. See the last post on MVP for a bit of methodology, etc. Generally the Cy Young doesn't take team performance into account specifically, though in the past a lot of (read: too much) attention has been paid to Win-Loss record, which is a fairly team-oriented construct. Anyway, in the case of a need for tie-breaking, team performance or performance in important games might be considered.
American League
Price
Keuchel
Much like the AL MVP, this one is almost too close to call. Keuchel gets a little more love from some advanced stats especially because he's a groundball heavy pitcher. Price gets some more strikeouts, they both walk abotu the same number of guys, almost the same number of innings. They probably have two more regular season starts each, and that might make the difference. Price and the Blue Jays are fighting for the division, while Keuchel and the Astros are trying to hold onto the second Wild Card (though a strong finish could put them back in the division mix), but on the other hand, Keuchel has been with the Astros since opening day, while Price joined the Jays at the trade deadline. Right now, I'll say David Price based on his exceptional performance with the Jays, especially against the Yankees, but two more starts could legitimately change this. *Read Baseball Prospectus glossary here for information on some of their stats. Anthony Young Award (Famous for holding the Major League record by losing 27 consecutive decisions. Losses are overrated, but having the same last name as Cy makes this an easy choice. Minimum 80 IP here)
National League
Kershaw
Anthony Young Award (Famous for holding the Major League record by losing 27 consecutive decisions. Losses are overrated, but having the same last name as Cy makes this an easy choice. Minimum 80 IP here)
Funny (or sad if you're a fan of these teams) to note that on the "worst" list, some teams seem to have multiple offenders (looking at you Boston, Detroit and Milwaukee). Well, those were pretty good. Maybe it would have been worth waiting a week and a half for a little bit of finality (which 3 of the 4 awards so far may need), but there can always be an addendum at that point, plus then it will be time to talk about playoffs! Next, rookies! Well friends, it's that time again, when arguments about end-of-season awards start. I'm here to contribute to the arguing! But frankly, I don't find that much of it to be all that important. Just kind of fun.
Rather than have 1 colossal post with too much going on in it, I'll break it down into categories. - MVP of each league - Cy Young of each league - Rookie hitter and pitcher of the year per league - top hitter for each league - top reliever for each league. Plus, for each, I'll do the opposite: LVP, worst pitcher, worst full-time hitter, worst full-time reliever. - Silver Slugger equivalents - that is, top hitter (only) at each position for both leagues. Maybe the low end of that as well, for comparison. - Gold Glove equivalents - that is, top fielder (only) at each position for both leagues, plus their opposites. - All Star teams for each league for this season, plus the No Star teams. Probably add a All Rookie team to this as well. So here goes! MVP A lot of words are written each year on this subject, often focusing on just what "valuable" means. I tend to take a bit more of a literalist approach, which is to say, I don't really care how well your team did. Baseball being what it is, one player can only influence a team that much, and the old "how bad would this team be without him?" exercise, well not invaluable, discounts guys who play exceptionally with an otherwise poor team. That and, the very instructions for voting on the award say "don't worry about how the team did" (paraphrasing). But if two players are otherwise exceptionally close, it doesn't hurt to use something like that as a bit of a tie-breaker. With any of these categories, I will try to find supporting statistics from the three major WAR producers. -
For these major awards, I'll try to present the cases for the top 5 contenders and then select who I think should win (I have no influence on this, I am not a member of the BBWAA, and unless whoever is reading this has shared it with a lot more people than I know about, I'm guessing my readership is probably still in the single digits, but thank you all still! There are no ads on this blog right now because I'm doing this 100% for fun.) All Statistics are through September 24 - there are about 10 games left per team, so things could change, but shouldn't change a huge amount. American League
Donaldson
I present a lot of stats here because... well it's really close. Baseball Prospectus is the only site of the three that sees a significant gap between them. On the one hand, traditional narrative favours Donaldson, as his team looks like they'll be in the playoffs, and Trouts may not (but still have a slim chance at a wildcard). But on the other hand, the same narrative robbed Trout of deserved MVP awards in 2012 and 2013 when he was significantly more valuable by most measures than playoff-bound Miguel Cabrera. It would seem a little insane for a just-turned 24-year-old to have been the best player (or just about this year) in the league every year since he was 20 and come out of it with 1 MVP award in his worst season of the 4 and three second-place finishes in the other years. But it might happen. Trying to parse it a bit, Trout gets on base a bit more and hits for a bit more power despite playing more games in significantly tougher ball parks (6 point difference between the two). Two of the three sites see Donaldson as a better fielder, but the third gives Trout a strong advantage there. Donaldson leads in RBIs, but has also driven in a higher percentage of the runners who have been on base for him. Honestly, this one is so close as to make either choice completely defensible. As a fan of the Blue Jays (thought not an exclusive fan), I want to pick Donaldson. As a fan of baseball history, I want to pick Trout, because he may end up going down as one of the top 5 or so players in the history of the game, and we're getting to watch it happen. This year may be the only time that it is fair to use team record as a tiebreaker, so if the standings finish exactly as they are now, with Trout out and Donaldson in and the stats remain this close (neither one hits 10 home runs with a .700 average over the last week and a half of the season), I'd vote Donaldson. But honestly, it's about 51-49, maybe 52-48. LVP (at least 400 PA - I'll leave the pitchers for the next round) - "top" 3 only
National League
Quickly though, his ranks in BOTH leagues in the following categories: Avg (1st), OBP (1st), Slg (1st), Runs (2nd - by 1), WAR (1st - all 3), HR (3rd, 1st in NL), BB (2nd), Runs Created (1st), wOBA (1st), wRC+ (1st), ISO (1st),. This is not a difficult decision. Any articles written between now and when the awards come out that suggest otherwise are wrong. I don't mind saying (and other smarter writers than me have already said) that anybody who votes differently is wrong. Bryce Harper is the NL MVP this year. LVP (at least 400 PA - I'll leave the pitchers for the next round)
That's all for the MVP/LVP stuff. Next up will by Cy Young / Anthony Young. |
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Greg JacksonA baseball fan in general. Interested in statistics and analytics. Usually follow the Giants and Blue Jays, fan of all MLB in general. |