American League MVP

[Moonlight J]

It would help if there was a second and separate "Player of the Year". MVP is exactly what baseball wants and needs-- a recognition of a player for being "most valuable", with all the ink, bandwidth and hot air that discussing it entails. Subjectivity is the lifeblood of human intellect and interest. Why are so many smart people out to eradicate it from this game?

Subjectivity is for sportsbars -- when players are penalized in HOF debates after their career because they didn't finish high enough in these subjective award processes, I care. The same people that criticize players for low MVP or Cy voting finishes are the same voters that thought they were being cute by giving some middle reliever a vote on their 10-deep ballot to be nice while a more deserving player got shafted.

[Judge Jude]

"It would help if there was a second and separate "Player of the Year". MVP is exactly what baseball wants and needs-- a recognition of a player for being "most valuable", with all the ink, bandwidth and hot air that discussing it entails. Subjectivity is the lifeblood of human intellect and interest. Why are so many smart people out to eradicate it from this game?"

Agreed.

[Long John]

Just as I did with the NL, here's the WAR for the AL guys being discussed:
Ellsbury - 8.7
Bautista - 8.2
Granderson - 7.3
Adrian Gonzalez - 6.6
Cano - 5.8
Young - 4.0
Cabrera - 6.5
D Ortiz - 4.3
Verlander - 7.0
Sabathia - 7.0 (for illustrative purposes)

My vote goes to Bautista. A wRC+ of 182 (Ellsbury is 148) puts me over the top for him.

[OaklandA's]

Verlander - 7.0
Sabathia - 7.0 (for illustrative purposes)

These are FanGraphs' WAR, which uses FIP instead of ERA. So even though Verlander has a 2.29 ERA and Sabathia's is 3.00, FanGraphs views them as equal because their FIPs are about the same (2.87, 2.92).

An ERA+ based WAR, such as on Baseball-Reference, gives Verlander an 8.7 to 6.9 lead in WAR.

[Moonlight J]

If you use B-Ref's WAR, Bautista and Verlander are tied

[RSF]

If you use B-Ref's WAR, Bautista and Verlander are tied

That just means Fangraphs has Ellsbury's edge in defense over Bautista higher. That may or may not be right, obviously, as defensive metrics are what they are.

[Erik]

I don't trust any WAR system where non-proprietary defensive metrics are used, because I think said metrics are terrible.

[Moonlight J]

I don't trust any WAR system where non-proprietary defensive metrics are used, because I think said metrics are terrible.

then take fangraphs, b-ref, and BP and average them out.

Still pretty much plays out the same way

[Moonlight J]

That just means Fangraphs has Ellsbury's edge in defense over Bautista higher. That may or may not be right, obviously, as defensive metrics are what they are.

because UZR is a mess these days over there.

[Sour Masher]

It can't go to a Red Sox player as they are split the vote and have been horrid down the stretch. I voted for Granderson, but by a razor thin margin. I'm in the camps of seeing the MVP as a hitters award, but if there was ever a pitcher that deserved it, Verlander does. What a beast he has been.

[SeaDogStat]

I wanna change my vote to Ellsbury!

[Moonlight J]

I wanna change my vote to Ellsbury!

Tony Pena is an idiot. How you pitch to a strong MVP candidate with a base open and Carl Crawful on deck is beyond me.

[RSF]

I'd vote for Bautista, as he's been the best player. I'm not sure I can see a good case for Granderson over Ellsbury, however, and the writers are likely to struggle with Granderson's BA (which I know is silly). Verlander may be second-best but I don't see the writers going there---in recent years they've bent over backwards not to look at SPs

[B-Fly]

Tony Pena is an idiot. How you pitch to a strong MVP candidate with a base open and Carl Crawful on deck is beyond me.

The Yankees had nothing to play for and by that point in the game Pena was probably told by Girardi to just play it straight up.

[SeaDogStat]

Tony Pena is an idiot. How you pitch to a strong MVP candidate with a base open and Carl Crawful on deck is beyond me.

Someone on twitter said the exact same thing last night... you probably stole it from that @jasoncollette guy who is wicked smart!