‘’Then if you’re a nice guy, they are going to treat you the same way. [Expletive] it, be an ####### then. I would rather be an ####### winning than be a nice guy [expletive] losing. Give me an ####### who can win, don’t give me a nice guy who can [expletive] lose.’"
ESPN jumped the gun on the UAB-Memphis game. How does that happen? Is it really so difficult to wait two minutes?
"The only two first-place votes that didn't go to Rodriguez were from Tom Gage of The Detroit News and Jim Hawkins of The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich."
Somebody put Abreu seventh? The guy had the worst year of his career, pretty easily. A 114 OPS+ from a right fielder just seems like it's hard to get excited about. And he didn't go nuts with the counting stats either- 16 HRs, 101 RBIs. Strange.
Sorry, but Vlad was not the third most valuable player in the league. I would like to see the logic in putting him ahead of Ortiz/Magglio/Posada.
Pena's line is weird- two third place votes, but wasn't higher than 6th on any other ballots.
Same goes for Putz- a 4th, an 8th, and a 9th. That's less surprising though- it's just someone valuing relievers more than others.
Polanco probably deserved more support- 12th in VORP, and Dewan's system likes his glove (+12 plays). He was definitely better than Jeter (although that hardly makes him unique; Jeter was 11th in VORP, -34 plays)
Sabathia beats Beckett again, this time 11-2. A convincing margin.
Lowest VORPs to receive a vote:
Frank Thomas 31.5 (31st among AL hitters) Justin Morneau 28.8 (39th) Bobby Abreu 27.9 (42nd)
About a month ago, I did a piece for The Hardball Times about a system that tries to predict who will win the MVP. I thought it might be interesting to look back at who the "MVP Tracker" predicts to win in previous years, and compare that with what actually happened. Today, I'll look at the AL voting over the past four years.
(Note: Don't directly compare the "PTS" between MVP Tracker and the actual voting; they use different scales. The thing to look at is the order, and even the size of the gaps.)
2003
This was A-Rod's last year with the Rangers, who finished 71-91, last in the AL West. MVP Tracker gets the top two right, but after that it's kind of a mess. Shannon Stewart, who was traded to the Twins on July 16, somehow conned his way into some votes with a VORP of 21 (This happened because the Twins went 46-23 after the trade; with Stewart hitting .322/.384/.470).
Manny, Nomar, and Ortiz probably split the vote to some extent. Although Manny pretty consistently does worse than expected because, well, he's Manny. Overall, MVP Predictor did horribly in '03, with a 0.23 correlation with the actual results among the top eight vote getters. This is hardly surprising, as the voting was wide open- 10 different guys got first place votes.
2004
MVP Tracker nails the Top 5 and the winner, but shuffles the order somewhat. I tried to incorporate an extra penalty for DHs into the system, but that never worked out; that's probably why Ortiz is too high. Again, Ramirez and Ortiz probably split votes, which allows Sheffield to jump up to 2nd. MVP Tracker did well in '04, with a 0.82 correlation among the top eight vote getters.
2005
This was the year when there was a big debate about whether Ortiz could win the MVP as a DH, and he came up short. MVP Tracker has A-Rod winning, with his advantage in BA making up for the deficit in RBIs.
My system is too high on Manny again. Please do not overlook his astounding UZR. And it really underestimates Vlad, who didn't have big power numbers, but had the "best hitter on a division winner" thing going on for him. Overall, a solid year for MVP Tracker, with a correlation of 0.73.
2006
I would first like to note that Travis Hafner, with a 79.7 VORP, was probably the best player in the AL last year. Just saying.
MVP Tracker had no doubt that Morneau would win, with all those RsBI on a division winner. (Side note: I feel like everybody, including myself, forgets that the Twins actually did win the Central last year, edging out the Tigers on the last day of the season. I guess that's because Detroit was in first all year, obviously went further in October, and who won the division didn't really matter all that much.)
The BBWAA just didn't do very well for themselves last year; Morneau and Thomas really have no place in this discussion. Ortiz and Hafner were probably the two best players, but, as DHs on non-playoff teams, were overlooked. Despite his defensive struggles, Jeter was pretty clearly deserving if you're going to give it to a guy on a playoff team.
2006 was MVP Tracker's best year, correctly predicting the top 3, and having a 0.83 correlation. Overall, I'm pretty happy with these results- it gets the winner right each time, and is right about the top two in three of the four years. And I'm pretty confident it will be right about this year's winner, not that that's particularly impressive.
In the THT article, I write about how my system thinks Holliday will win this year. If the Rockies had missed out on the playoffs, it would have predicted Rollins. I mention this because it's unclear to me when the MVP votes are due in. I've heard that it's the Monday after the regular season ends, even though there was technically one final regular season game on Monday night. If this is true, and the BBWAA doesn't take the 163rd game into account, I think Rollins wins.
"Alex Rodriguez started the series 0 for 6 in the first two games in Cleveland, but when the chips were down and his team needed him most, he dug down deep and bounced back with four hits in Games 3 and 4, including a gargantuan home run Monday night that drew his team within striking distance. Despite these herculean efforts from the best player in the game, the Yankees could not overcome a late, dramatic GIDP by series goat Derek Jeter, his third of the series in only seventeen at bats. Jeter, a reliable on base presence in the two hole during the regular season, looked uncomfortable all series long, never getting into a groove and finishing with a 0.176 OBP with no walks in the series." -FJM, of course.
Pos: "One final question: Will the New York writers tear apart Derek Jeter for having one of the most un-clutch series I can remember a player having?"
There is no such thing as a .400 hitter. Well, at least there never has been. People have hit .400, of course, but that's always been something of a fluke. This is evident in the fact that Ty Cobb has the highest career BA ever, at "just" .366.
In 1994, Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when the season was cut short by the strike. He hit .358 in '93, and .368 in '95, so in reality he was about a .372 hitter over that three year period. If he had gotten 170 more ABs in '94, there's about a 14% chance he would have bumped his average up to .400.
Since Williams hit .406 in 1941, five guys have had 500+ plate appearances and hit over .375:
It's no coincidence that Brett, Williams and Walker barely had 50o plate appearances- it's a lot easier to hit .375+ over 450 plate appearances than 600. If Carew had had as many ABs in '77 as Brett had in '80, there's a 30% chance he would have gotten lucky and ended up above .400.
The ability to hit .400 is a very different "skill" than the ability to put together a long hit streak. For hitting streaks, you want as many at bats as possible, since going 1/5 is just as good as going 1/2. For this list, it's an advantage to have fewer at bats, as that increases the chances that you can get lucky and hit for a higher average than your actual level of ability would normally indicate (for example, almost anyone can hit .400 over the course of 20 at bats). Because of this, hitting lower in the order, and drawing a lot of walks, increase your chances of hitting for an unusually high average.
Taking these factors into account, as well as age, here are the 10 guys that are most likely to hit .400. 1. Miguel Cabrera (24 years old, .327 BA in 05-07). Career odds: 1 in 429 2008 odds: 1 in 6859
The concerns about his weight have not effected Miggy's batting average, as he's hit at least .323 each of the last three years. A couple weeks ago he became the third fastest to 500 RBIs, reminding the world that he doesn't turn 25 until April of 2008. It's possible that he has room to grow as a hitter, which is a scary thought- he has to be #1 on this list.
2. Albert Pujols (27 years old, .327 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 473 2008 odds: 1 in 6146
This was the first guy that came to mind for me. Over the last three years he has walked in almost 16% of his plate appearances- that kills him in terms of hit streaks (he wasn't even in the top 10), but really helps him here- he's never had more than 592 ABs in a season.
3. Matt Holliday (27 years old, .323 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 1167 2008 odds: 1 in 15170
How much of an effect does Coors Field have on this? In his career, he's hit .358 at home, but just .273 on the road. If he were to plan an entire season at home, he'd have about a 2% chance of hitting .400. On the other hand, if he played a full year on the road, he wouldn't be anywhere near this list. 4. Vladimir Guerrero (31 years old, .325 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 1802 2008 odds: 1 in 16214
Doesn't it seem like a long more than four years ago that Vlad was playing in Montreal? This is completely unrelated, but with the Expos he averaged 17.5 stolen bases per year but was thrown out 37% of the time. In Anaheim, he has averaged just 11.3 SB/yr, but has only been thrown out on 21% of his attempts.
5. Placido Polanco (31 years old, .325 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 3032 2008 odds: 1 in 27281
After the 2004 season, Polanco's career average stood at .295. How has he hit 30 points higher than that over the last three seasons? Well, for one thing he stopped striking out- his K% has gone from 10.9% in 1999 to 4.9% this year. He's also increased his BABiP by hitting more line drives- his LD% for 02-04 was 22.5%, over the last three years it's 24.6%.
6. Derrek Lee (31 years old, .319 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 3612 2008 odds: 1 in 32500
Lee is on this list only because he hit .335 in 2005; since then, he's hit .305 in 695 ABs. It has been speculated that this is an effect of injuring his wrist last April. That may have something to do with it, but I would guess 2005 was the exception here- his previous career high was .282. 7. Derek Jeter (33 years old, .322 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 4216 2008 odds: 1 in 29511 If this were to happen, I think it's entirely reasonable to think he could be on the front page of both the Post and Daily News every day for two months.
8. Magglio Ordonez (33 years old, .322 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 5165 2008 odds: 1 in 36154
Before this year, Magglio had never hit above .320; right now, he's at .357. If he went 42/45 down the stretch, he'd be at .401; I tried to run the odds on that, but it just says 0.
9. Ichiro Suzuki (33 years old, .324 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 5287 2008 odds: 1 in 37007
Ichiro averaged 683 ABs over his first six seasons, because he bats leadoff and rarely walks. In 2004 he hit .372 in 704 ABs; if he had had 200 fewer at bats, there's about a 1 in 10 chance that he would have hit .400.
10: Robinson Cano (24 years old, .313 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 8496 2008 odds: 1 in 135924
Cano was third on the hit streak list because he never walks, and he's only 10th on this list for that same reason. It should be noted that he's at least walking more than he used to- his BB% has doubled from 3.0% in 2005 to 6.0% this season.
There have been a couple impressive streaks lately that have received national attention (Webb & Jenks), and a third (Polanco's errorless streak) that hasn't been as hyped up but is pretty incredible.
None of this compares to the frenzy that would surround a player who had a hitting streak approaching 56 games. DiMaggio's record is probably the most famous streak in all of sports (above even Ripken's), and the media scrutiny on anyone who challenged it would be insane. But who's got the best chance? I crunched some numbers to find the 10 players who have the best chance of breaking the record.
This amazed me: DiMaggio struck out 13 times in 621 plate appearances in 1941. That's 2.4%. Although a factor, I didn't consider strikeouts in my analysis. Here's what went into it:
Hit Percentage
No, not batting average. Batting average doesn't take walks into consideration, and that's a big factor here. Walks are actually a negative in looking for someone who could put together a long hitting streak- a plate appearance that ends in a walk is one less that can result in a hit. Hit Percentage is simply hits divided by plate appearances. Ichiro leads in this category at .297 over the last three years. In 1941, DiMaggio's Hit Percentage was .311. Walks are the reason guys like Pujols and Utley aren't in the top 10.
Lineup Slot
The higher you are in the lineup, the more times you get to bat, and thus the more likely you are to get at hit. This actually has a pretty significant effect on one's chances of reaching 56 games. The chart on the right shows the expected plate appearances per game for each lineup slot (as you may notice, the math is not terribly complicated- it just goes down by .12 each time). This generally isn't a huge factor, as almost everybody on this list hits first, second or third, with the exception of Robinson Cano (more on that later).
Team Runs per Game
Well, if your team scores a lot of runs they obviously turn the lineup over more often. I found that for each run your team averages above the league average, that adds .15 plate appearances. I didn't use such a dramatic effect in my model, as offenses vary over time and we're looking at each player's entire career rather than just this year or next year.
Age
I just assumed that each player plays until the age of 40. I also factored in a slight decline in both Hit Percentage and games played as players get into their late 30s. What's interesting about this is that the following list isn't dominated by players in their early 20s. This is because your Hit Percentage has to be at such a high level to have any significant chance of breaking the record that age isn't all that important, as only an elite group of players even enters the discussion.
So I've gone through the factors, now here's the list of the guys who have the best chance to break the record.
1. Hanley Ramirez
Career odds: 1 in 383
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 4557
I have written at length about how underrated Hanley is before, so it's good to be able to show him some respect myself. He's really got everything going for him in this discussion- he bats leadoff, has a solid Hit % of .281, and, most importantly, is only 23.
2. Placido Polanco
Career odds: 1 in 397
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 1563
Bet you didn't see this one coming. Polanco possesses two key attributes- he never strikes out (his K% of 5.0% is easily the lowest in baseball), and his line drive % (24.2%, behind only Michael Young and Chone Figgins) is very high. He would be at the top of this list if he was a few years younger (he's 31) or hit leadoff (he bats second).
3. Robinson Cano
Career odds: 1 in 465
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 5072
To me, Cano is the most interesting guy here. He never walks (66 BBs in 1598 career PA), get his share of infield hits (23 this year), and is only 24. If he batted leadoff he would easily be first on this list (at 1 in 79). Problem is he usually hits between sixth and ninth in the Yankee lineup. Since he won't be that low his entire career (I'd guess he ends up hitting second or third), I had him hitting fourth for the purposes of this exercise. If I had just had him hitting third, he would have come out at #1, but that seemed unreasonable for a guy who's hit seventh 70 times this year.
4. Ichiro Suzuki
Career odds: 1 in 481
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 1331
As I mentioned before, Ichiro actually leads the league in Hit % at .297, as he's hitting .353 this year while only drawing 39 walks. His 39 infield hits are 10 more than anyone else. Add in the fact he hits leadoff every night, and he has the best chance of breaking the record next year. The only strike against him, and the reason he's this low, is that he's already 33. Although maybe when he becomes a pitcher at 40 he'll be playing in the NL and continue a hit streak every fifth day.
5. Freddy Sanchez
Career odds: 1 in 548
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 3242
Sanchez led the NL in BA last year (.344), which gave him quite a boost. Incredibly, he was only 17th in OBP, as he walked just 31 times. In the strange world of hit streaks this actually helps him, as he had an impressive Hit % of .316. Of course, he's not actually that good- his BABiP of .370 last year was 33 points above his career average.
6. Michael Young
Career odds: 1 in 561
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 2762
Young is a line drive machine, leading the league in LD% at 26.2%. His BB% of 7.0% is just 129th out of 171 qualified batters. He's the fourth most likely to put together a long streak next year, but he's already 30.
7. Matt Holliday
Career odds: 1 in 592
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 4678
Holliday is hitting .338 this year, which is probably unsustainable. His BABiP of .385 is 30 points above his career level. Also hurting his chances is that his BB% has increased from 7.1% over the last three years to 8.3% this year. This is good for the Rockies, but not good for his dreams of breaking DiMaggio's record (which may or may not exist).
8. Miguel Cabrera
Career odds: 1 in 769
Chance he he does it in '08: 1 in 8367
In 2005, Miggy had 15 infield hits. This year? Only 4. He's listed at 210 lbs., but that's a lie. Check out this awesome before and after of Cabrera from Vinyl is Heavy:
Hmm. I wonder why his infield hits have decreased so dramatically over this time.
9. Derek Jeter
Career odds: 1 in 832 Chance he he does it in '08: 1 in 2293
Finally. Jeter is the oldest guy on this list (he's 33). He has walked 195 times since '05, which prevents him from being higher, although he is third if we're just looking at next year. Jeter has 2,316 career hits- Rose had 2,337 through his age 33 season, while Cobb had 2856. If he wants to go for the hit record he'll have to follow Rose's path. Although averaging 129 hits a year between the ages of 40 and 44 is a lot easier said than done.
10. Carl Crawford
Career odds: 1 in 1059
Chance he does it in '08: 1 in 10463
Crawford has split his time between hitting second (44 times) and third (71 times)- if he hit second every day he'd jump up to #8. Like Cabrera, Crawford has seen his infield hits decline- he had 70 in 03-04, but is down to 15 this year. There's no clear explanation for this beyond the fact that he's striking out a lot more (19.6% K% this year, 4.5% above his career average), which only explains part of it.
As you've probably noticed, nobody is at all likely to break the record. In fact, there's only a 1 in 56 (strange coincidence) chance that any of these 10 guys reaches DiMaggio's mark. Regardless of how good you are, getting a hit every game for two months is extremely difficult. If I had done this for DiMaggio before the 1941 season, his odds would have been 1 in 84 for his career, and 1 in 833 for '41. (I'm guessing he hit 3rd, but that could be incorrect, please correct me if it is.)
I thought it would be an interesting excercise to combine these two statistics and see which American League players have been most valuable to their teams over the first two months of the season. I'll do the NL tomorrow.
First, I took the top 20 AL hitters in WPA from FanGraphs.
Taking these, I then adjusted them based on position. Note that I have changed my adjustments so they are now based on PA, rather than AB. Here is how much each of these players' WPAs changed with this adjustment.
In short, adjusted WPA adjusts a player's WPA based on what an average player at his position would have done in the same number of plate appearances. A more detailed explanation can be found here.
Adding this number to each player's WPA gives us Adjusted WPA. But that is only half the story- fielding must also be taken into consideration.
UZR is given in runs. When adding it to Adjusted WPA, I divided it by 10, since, generally 10 runs is equal to one win.
Vlad has been so much better than everyone else in terms of regular WPA, it would be almost impossible for anyone to make up for it with the positional adjustment and UZR.
Grady Sizemore does makes a valiant effort, as he is first in UZR (+12) to this point in the season. This allows him to move from seventh in WPA to second in value.
The player most adversely effected? Wouldn't have been my first guess- Derek Jeter. The controversy about Jeter's fielding value hasbeenwelldocumented. Since he indisputably plays SS (not even Neyer could argue that point), his bat has some extra value in the posititional adjustment.
Then comes UZR. There are 584 players listed in Lichtman's ratings. Derek Jeter comes in 574th, at -7 runs.
To me, this combination of adjusting WPA and incorporating fielding stats is very interesting. Casey Kotchman, the Angels' first baseman, loses .47 becasue of his position, but gains almost all of it back with his UZR of 4.
I always thought this was one of the most difficult parts when comparing different positions. Not only do you have to compare each player's bat's value based on their position, but how valuable they are defensively at that position.
This is very difficult to do, but I feel this system does that pretty effectively.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please e-mail me at jnwheat@emory.edu, or post something in the comments section below.
