2011 AL MVP Award Winner Announced

To the surprise of many, starting pitcher Justin Verlander was voted the American League Most Valuable Player! And, even though I would have voted for him myself, it was hard for me to think he would win over the hitters. After all, it’s been 25 years since a starting pitcher took home the award (hello Roger Clemens) and 19 years since any pitcher did (I see you hiding there Dennis Eckersley). I believe this voting only confirms the changing thinking processes, which has been occurring slowly over the past 5-10 years, in baseball. Thinking processes on how to better evaluate players and compare their values properly.

Be forewarned dear reader, this article may be a bit longwinded!

Top Ten AL MVP vote Getters (courtesy of the BBWAA.COM website):

Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers – 13 1^st place votes            – 280 points

Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox – 4 1^st place votes          – 242 points

Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays – 5 1^st place votes           – 231 points

Curtis Granderson, NY Yankees – 3 1^st place votes            – 215 points

Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers – 2 1^st place votes               – 193 points

Robinson Cano, NY Yankees                                               – 112 points

Adrian Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox                                        – 105 points

Michael Young, Texas Rangers – 1 1^st place vote               – 96 points

Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox                                           – 48 points

Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays                                         – 27 points

The rest of the field in order of points received: Ian Kinsler, Alex Avila, Paul Konerko, CC Sabathia, Adrian Beltre, Ben Zobrist, Victor Martinez, James Shield, Mark Teixeira, Asdrubal Cabrera, Alex Gordon, Josh Hamilton and finally my main man David Robertson (woo hoo!).

Verlander was able to win even though he was listed on only 27 of the 28 ballots! That almost NEVER happens as the top vote getters are ALWAYS on every ballot! For example, the next 4 vote getters Ellsbury, Bautista, Granderson and Miguel Cabrera were on every ballot. Plus, it is very rare for a player to win the award with less than half the first place votes. The last player to win the AL Award like that was Alex Rodriguez in the crazy 2003 voting (10 different players received a first place vote!). As you can see from the above list, 6 different players received a first place vote this year. And it is in this exact kind of environment that one would think a pitcher has a chance to win in. An environment where there is no clear cut heads above the field offensive favorite.

If Jose Bautista or Adrian Gonzalez had 2^nd halves like their first ones, I highly doubt Verlander wins. Or, as many analysts have been saying, if the Red Sox make the playoffs then Jacoby Ellsbury probably wins instead. Also, having multiple hitters from the same teams had to help Verlander (2 Yankees and 3 Red Sox) since they probably took votes away from each other. If either Adrian Gonzalez or Dustin Pedroia don’t have those great seasons then perhaps Ellsbury receives enough votes to overtake Verlander. While having another MVP candidate on his team (the smasher Miguel Cabrera) probably didn’t affect Verlander in the same manner (IMHO). Once a voter came to terms that he would vote for a pitcher over a hitter, he was voting for Verlander regardless.

Surprisingly, Verlander is only the second pitcher to ever be awarded the Rookie of the Year Award (he won in 2006), The CY Young Award and the MVP Award. The other was the pitching great Don Newcombe who won all three awards with the Brooklyn Dodgers (Rookie in 1949, CY Young and MVP in 1956).

As a quick aside, the Detroit Tigers have been a great organization for producing MVP Award winners over the years, having Verlander, Hal Newhouser (twice), Hank Greenberg (twice), Denny McLain, Guillermo (Willie) Hernandez, Mickey Cochrane, and Charlie Gehringer.

Changing gears for a moment, a word on why the latest popular advanced stat WAR makes me laugh out loud in a discussion like this. The latest stat WAR (Wins above Replacement) seems to be making an appearance on every TV baseball show and in many analysts’ articles/blogs. It has been gaining momentum as a mainstream tool to compare players’ seasons. I won’t bore you with the exact details of how it is figured out (to make it more fun, pitchers and hitters have different formulas too). In layman’s terms WAR means how many wins a player adds to a team over the random replacement player.

2011 AL WAR Leaders (courtesy of the Baseball-reference.COM website):

Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers                    8.5

Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays                  8.5

Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston Red Sox                 7.2

Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers                     7.1

Adrian Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox                6.9

Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox                  6.8

CC Sabathia, New York Yankees                6.8

Jered Weaver, Los Angeles Angels              6.5

Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays                6.3

James Shields, Tampa Bay Rays                 6.1

Josh Beckett, Boston Red Sox                     6.1

As you can plainly see the pitchers have a nice presence with this advanced stat! The reason I laugh is because I can’t shake the feeling that this is supposed to mean the average replacement player for Verlander would have had 15 or 16 wins for the Detroit Tigers! Really?! I am sorry but I just don’t see that as reality.

OK, let’s back to the heart of the discussion for this MVP Award! Which is the argument of a whether a pitcher should ever be seriously considered. The basic argument for the hitters is just the plain common sense of how can someone who only plays every fifth day (or in the best case scenario for a reliever, every other day), be as valuable as someone who plays everyday?

There cannot be any denying that when a starting pitcher takes the mound every 5^th game, he is the single most important person on the team that day. He can affect the outcome of the game greater than any single player does (yes I understand the incredible single offensive days hitters have, I am talking on an average day to day, game to game affect, over a season). A great starting pitcher has an even larger affect than their one individual game start, giving a bullpen important rest, which positively impacts the next 2-4 games a team plays (just ask the Red Sox what happened the last month of the season, for the opposite affect).

For fun, we can point out that a pitcher can affect the game every pitch they throw. Verlander averaged 115.9 pitches a game – 1^st in the AL, for a total of 3,941 pitches thrown in all. Or, if you like total batters they faced instead, Verlander faced 969 batters – 3^rd in the AL.

Let’s compare some of this info versus Jacoby Ellsbury, who came in 2^nd in the MVP voting. Ellsbury played in 154 games in the field with a total number of 394 fielding chances, good for 2^nd amongst CF’s in the AL (he made an amazing zero errors which helped him win the gold glove). Ellsbury led the AL with 732 PA’s (Plate Appearances) in his 158 GP (he pinch hit or DH’d for 4 additional games). If we add the two figures together we get 1,126 total times Ellsbury affected a game.

I readily admit this is a very basic comparison at best, but Verlanders’ 969 batters faced isn’t far off Ellsbury’s 1,126 figure. Especially when you factor in how much Verlander helped rest his team’s bullpen. And Ellsbury easily was in the leaders in the AL with his figure, being the leadoff batter for his team. I can live with this as a simplistic refutation of the conventional nonsense, er… wisdom, about everyday players being more important. For the average pitcher’s season this may be true, but definitely not for the top pitching seasons!

A quick aside to do a shout out to my man David Robertson making a showing in the MVP voting! After both appearing in the CY Young and MVP voting, Robertson is making a statement for the forgotten middle relievers!

Finally, to me, it looks like the voters are making better decisions. I see Verlander’s 2011 MVP, Felix Hernandez’s 2010 CY Young and Zack Greinke’s 2009 CY Young as proof of this recent trend. It almost washes out the bad taste I still have from Bartolo Colon’s CY Young Award in 2005, when Mariano Rivera should have finally been awarded one. Not quite, but almost!