Today we reveal the Baseball Prospectus staff choices for the major player awards (MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year) in the American and National Leagues. Each staff member's choices may be found later in the article. Here, we present a wisdom-of-the-crowds summary of the results.
For the MVP voting, we've slightly amended the traditional points system in place that has been used elsewhere, dropping fourth- and fifth-place votes to make it 10-7-5 for the MVP Award, and the regular 5-3-1 for the Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year Awards (that's 5 points for a first-place vote, 3 points for a second-place vote, etc.). Next to each of these selections we've listed the total number of ballots, followed by the total number of points, and then the number of first-place votes in parentheses, if any were received.
American League
MVP
- Mike Trout, Angels, 32, 314 (30)
- Miguel Cabrera, Tigers, 32, 228 (2)
- Josh Donaldson, Athletics, 18, 92
- Chris Davis, Orioles, 10, 50
- (T5) Robinson Cano, Yankees, 2, 10
- (T5) Evan Longoria, Rays, 2, 10
Cy Young
- Max Scherzer, Tigers, 32, 146 (27)
- Yu Darvish, Rangers, 16, 48 (3)
- (T3) Felix Hernandez, Mariners, 11, 31 (2)
- (T3) Chris Sale, White Sox, 17, 31
- Anibal Sanchez, Tigers, 12, 24
- Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners, 5, 5
- James Shields, Royals, 1, 3
- (T8) Justin Verlander, Tigers, 1, 1
- (T8) Koji Uehara, Red Sox, 1, 1
Rookie of the Year
- Wil Myers, Rays, 33, 159 (30)
- Chris Archer, Rays, 18, 52 (3)
- Jose Iglesias, Tigers, 23, 45
- Dan Straily, Athletics, 10, 16
- David Lough, Royals, 4, 10
- Sonny Gray, Athletics, 3, 5
- (T7) Danny Farquhar, Mariners, 2, 4
- (T7) Martin Perez, Rangers, 4, 4
- Brad Miller, Mariners, 3, 3
- Nick Franklin, 1, 1
Manager of the Year
- John Farrell, Red Sox, 22, 84 (12)
- Terry Francona, Indians, 22, 68 (6)
- Bob Melvin, Athletics, 21, 57 (6)
- Joe Girardi, Yankees, 8, 20 (2)
- Joe Maddon, Rays, 9, 19 (1)
- Jim Leyland, Tigers, 1, 1
- Ned Yost, Royals, 1, 1
National League
MVP
- Andrew McCutchen, Pirates, 32, 297 (27)
- Paul Goldschmidt, Diamondbacks, 21, 136 (1)
- Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers, 13, 93 (2)
- Matt Carpenter, Cardinals, 15, 92 (1)
- Joey Votto, Reds, 6, 35 (1)
- Carlos Gomez, Brewers, 4, 20
- Yadier Molina, Cardinals, 2, 14
- Allen Craig, Cardinals, 1, 7
- (T9) Shin-Soo Choo, Reds, 1, 5
- (T9) Yasiel Puig, Dodgers, 1, 5
Cy Young
- Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers, 32, 158 (31)
- Adam Wainwright, Cardinals, 22, 52
- Matt Harvey, Mets, 20, 34 (1)
- Jose Fernandez, Marlins, 14, 32
- Cliff Lee, Phillies, 7, 11
- Mat Latos, Reds, 1, 1
Rookie of the Year
- Jose Fernandez, Marlins, 32, 148 (26)
- Yasiel Puig, Dodgers, 26, 108 (6)
- (T3) Hyun-jin Ryu, Dodgers, 11, 11
- (T3) Julio Teheran, Braves, 11, 11
- Shelby Miller, Cardinals, 4, 4
- (T6) Gerrit Cole, Pirates, 2, 2
- (T6) A.J. Pollock, Diamondbacks, 2, 2
- (T8) Nolan Arenado, Rockies, 1, 1
- (T8) Jedd Gyorko, Padres, 1, 1
Manager of the Year
- Clint Hurdle, Pirates, 25, 105 (19)
- Don Mattingly, Dodgers, 22, 64 (5)
- Mike Matheny, Cardinals, 19, 45 (2)
- Fredi Gonzalez, Braves, 14, 34 (2)
- (T5) Dusty Baker, Reds, 1, 1
- (T5) Terry Collins, Mets, 1, 1
- (T5) Mike Redmond, Marlins, 1, 1
For individual ballots, see the spreadsheet embedded below:
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So how can all these statheads possibly let Gomez drop out of the top five in the NL MVP voting?
Many of you are talking the talk but not walking the walk...
Miguel Cabrera's 2013 year is more impressive considering he's been hurt the last couple of months, and he still led the league in hitting for the third straight year.
Incidentally, if you do run the IBAs, you might include "Entire Cardinals pitching staff" as a choice for the NL RotY vote. How do this year's Cards rank historically among value contributed by rookie pitchers? If you measure by depth rather than by contribution of the one top guy (although Miller still had a great year), I can't think of any others recently that come close.
year team ROOKIES IP ER ERA PWARP
2012 OAK 14 907.67 340 3.37 9.11
2006 FLO 13 830 370 4.01 8.97
1984 NYN 7 694.33 272 3.53 7.62
1975 SFN 7 623.67 232 3.35 7.49
1955 CLE 4 279.67 88 2.83 7.3
1959 SLN 13 643.33 334 4.67 7.18
2003 ARI 10 608.67 258 3.81 7.06
1957 PHI 5 514.33 203 3.55 7.03
1993 PIT 12 635.67 307 4.35 6.47
2006 LAN 7 373.67 155 3.73 6.41
2013 SLN 13 554 195 3.17 6.4
Some of the teams on this list are examples of why I inserted that "depth" qualifier. For example, a large fraction of the value of the 1955 Indians rookie pitchers was concentrated in the tragic form of Herb Score, that year's Rookie of the Year and one of the great, sad "What Might Have Been" baseball stories. Essentially the whole value of the 1957 Phillies rookie pitchers was in Jack Sanford, who won the RotY (at age 28), and Turk Farrell. Similarly the 1975 Giants (Montefusco) and so on. Spreading the value widely across the newcomers, as the Cardinals did this year and Oakland did last, appears to be rare.
Without the injury, Cabrera would have had back-to-back Triple Crowns, but that just small potatoes for the BP geniuses here.
I'll put all my faith that WAR has the proper weighting of defense into the metric that something that was nearly unprecedented in baseball.
And that's putting aside any notion of valuable for a team that didn't play a meaningful game since May.
Negative rating of -12 just for suggesting that Cabrera was the MVP last year as well as this year.
Just who is included in this part of groupthink? And just who is putting down any dissenting opinion?
WAR and all the new stuff is nice and all, and I respect it, otherwise I wouldn't have renewed my subscription to this Publication, but the main thing is, Trout's team didn't make the Playoff either year he's been up in the Majors.
You need more than what he brings to the game in order to win a Playoff berth, to say nothing of a Championship.
While Cabrera's injuries did allow Chris Davis to pass him in RBIs, any objective observer would agree that Davis had the home run title locked down a long time before Cabrera performance began to be impacted.
There was no Triple Crown in the cards this year.
Face it: the Triple Crown is small potatoes. To be fair, Cabrera did improve his OBP and SLG over last year, but Trout got better too, and Cabrera is still a lousy base runner who may be the worst defensive 3rd baseman in the game. The Triple Crown, rare as it is, has been done before. What Trout did has NEVER been done before. It is completely unprecedented. It just doesn't have a fancy name.
Team performance is irrelevant to an individual award, but in terms of "meaningful games", they're all meaningful, especially if you're still on a rookie deal. Poor play gets Trout sent down, which hurts his pay. Trout is playing for a monster extension or future free agent deal. It can literally be a +$200 million difference in future earnings. How's that for meaningful?
Anyone who discounts Cabrera's contributions for doing that reveals an extraordinarily arrow vision that they are using to evaluate his contribution to the team.
His "value added" to the team by moving to third needs to be calculated as an extra bonus, rather than a subtraction, in any discussion of "most valuable."
That you also wish to debate (and discount) Cabrera's value while playing 3B by discussing the value of other players who that allowed into the lineup confirms my contention that WAR is affected by who ones teammates are. Just as RBIs and pitcher's wins are.
Which gives me great pleasure when people mock (rightly so)the traditional stats which are heavily influenced by teammates, but twist and turn in every direction to try and mask that WAR is also influenced by ones teammates.
It would be nice to have an objective statistic that settles all arguments, but we are not there yet.
WAR is certainly useful as a blunt instrument, but it's not a purely objective tool. Far from it.
Also, are you sure that he went so reluctantly? Is it not possible that he saw 3B as a more glamorous position, in much the same way that Derek Jeter did not want to leave SS in favor of Alex Rodriguez, because SS is cooler than 3B?
Please make up your mind.
As for me, I will ask you nicely not to put any words in my mouth, as I have no idea whether he "wanted to" or was "reluctant to."
All I know is that his team asked him to, and he so he did.
I plan to give Cabrera "subjective" credit for that forever, because being a team player is a whole lot "cooler" than just about anything else.
Besides, he still can hit a little bit, too.
That alone increased Trout's WAR dramatically. Bourjos' injury alone may have added about two points to Trout's WAR for the year.
And since Cabrera agreed to move to third so that Fielder could be his teammate, his WAR probably got knocked down around two points.
The best part is that all of that positional WAR can easily be calculated before the first pitch of the game is ever even thrown. The actual stats achieved during games only serve to tweak DWAR around the margins.
Isn't that super convenient?
Simply add up thir DWAR based upon where they stand, and you'll see thatv2+2=4, making Trout the runaway leader in WAR over Cabrera. And we will claim with a straight face that it was all a totally "objective" calculation.
So, see, WAR can be just like real estate. It's all about location, location, location!
(And if all else fails, everyone can repeat, "Base running counts, too, you know?")
Okay, I'll admit that I simplified it some to make the point, if the rest of you will acknowledge that WAR can be tremendously affected by who ones teammates are.
WAR is very much dependent upon those teammates, in the same sense that RBIs and pitcher's wins stats are. Which, of course, are mocked for that very reason.
If it is true that playing 3B boosts Cabrera's DWAR, why isn't it boosted this year? It is the same as when he played at 1B.
Perhaps because it is more difficult to play 3B, so naturally, he won't be as successful making plays? Cabrera sacrificed his defensive numbers by moving to a less comfortable position because his team asked him to do so.
I must admit that I am puzzled to figure out what you mean by "Put them both where they belong." Because it seems that "where they belong" is not objective, and is entirely dependent upon two things:
A). Who their teammates are, and
B). The decisions the manager makes regarding how to deploy his players.
Both of which affect ones DWAR, while both are also outside the control of the individual player.
My point exactly. So thank you for embellishing that for me!
The analytical community prides themselves on their attempts to quantitate fielding. From the early efforts of some guy sitting in the stands to charting hits to the more dispassionate regression of putouts and assists, the efforts are to be praised for trying to advance the merits of good fielding.
But efforts are not to be confused with providing the right answer. The analytical community has wrapped its self around WAR as if it the end-statistic. That would be impossible until the fielding metrics are indeed correct.
Frankly I find it hard to understand how Trout could standout in any fielding metric when playing next to an even better CF in Bourjous. Just who gets credit for all those FBs in LCF?
WAR is accepted by way more people than those that actually understand the mathematics behind it. Kind of like ESPN's QBR?
Obviously 30 of 32 BP writers have chosen to put there faith in that metric above everything else. That I believe is the result of a collective desire to validate their belief that they have the 'golden number' to define baseball performance.
Nor I comment that playing next to Bourjos improved his numbers, as you did.
In fact, I wrote "The best part is that all of that positional WAR can easily be calculated before the first pitch of the game is ever even thrown."
The boost Trout gets to his WAR comes just from standing in center field, thanks to the fact the Bourjos was hurt. If Bourjos would have been able to play every game so that Trout stayed in left, Trout's DWAR would have been less.
In fact, your suggestion that Trout might catch more balls along the foul line because with Bourjos playing CF he can shade over that way, strengthens the case that DWAR is influenced by who ones teammates are, and is not a purely objective statistic.
Ten runs = one win = $5 million of salary.
How is that for understanding?
"When one quantifies these differences and also looks at the changes in fielding performance when players move to different positions we can estimate the average differences between positions.
Current values (per 1350 (150*9) innings played) are:
C: +10 runs
SS: +7.5 runs
2B: +3 runs
CF: +2.5 runs
3b: +2 runs
RF: -7.5 runs
LF: -7.5 runs
1B: -10 runs
DH: -15 runs
P: see Pitcher Positional Adjustment"
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml