2026 National League (NL) MVP race

here is a safe space for steve shasta to shit on shohei and also presumably big-up PCA

(he might not be wrong)

(although iirc steve shasta is historically v. dismissive of defensive WAR calculations . . . )

Cris Sanchez has a legit chance for NL MVP, contrary to Clem's $$$(CAD) thrown elsewhere.

^^^ scattering chaff

Nothing I can do--I was betrayed by the Brewers braintrust. They need to be more mindful of those who've placed bets.

(I just gave you a preview of MLB in 2036.)

clem don't let steve shasta get inside your head

he's insidious, like a world-class wakeboarder

I've raised this point before, but sometimes one of the two WAR figures doesn't make sense to me. In this case it's bWAR.

I get that the basic difference is that bWAR's about what's happened, and fWAR's about what should have happened. I also get that Sanchez's extra 22 IP are valuable, and I get that the Brewers are a much better team than the Phillies. But:

Sanchez - 149.2 IP, 2.65 ERA, 2.69 FIP, 1.216 WHIP, 4.97 K/BB
Miz - 127.0 IP, 1.63 ERA, 2.04 FIP, 0.732 WHIP, 6.72 K/BB

Miz leads in fWAR 5.1 to 4.6. That seems about right to me--Miz is clearly more dominant, but Sanchez closes the gap becasue of IP. Sanchez leads in bWAR 6.1 to 4.7. That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't know about the park factor there, or the two teams' relative defense. But they must favor Sanchez significantly on bREF.

That WHIP is insane

For a starter, yeah--it's like a Kimbrel/Chapman/Jensen/Hader WHIP.

yeah it's park factor and defense - they think that Sanchez' defense costs him .27 runs per 9, Miz' defense saves him .21. They think the parks Sanchez has pitched in are 8% more offense than average, Miz 2% below average. And that Sanchez has faced slightly tougher offenses (4.66 r/9 vs 4.51 r/9). So an average pitcher with the defense and parks and opponents that Sanchez has had they think would allow 5.5 runs per 9 instead of the 3.01 that he's allowing. And an average pitchers with the Miz's defense parks and opponents would be at 4.43 instead of his 2.20 (That's another thing, they use RA instead of ERA, which reduces the gap some as well)

bWAR rewards pitchers who:

pitch often
pitch reliably
pitch deeper into games
(alongside the usual not allowing runs, striking out opponents, etc.)

for an MVP level argument, i'm more biased toward bWAR than fWAR which leans a bit extremely on FIP as a paradigm input.

(xpost) Thanks. For me, that's a lot of conjecture.

Here's what's odd. When there's a bWAR/fWAR split, it's usually (more or less) because pitcher A will have a 2.50 ERA, and pitcher B will have better peripherals but a higher ERA. So bWAR goes for pitcher A--the bottom line is that he prevented more runs--while fWAR will go for pitcher B, who should have prevented more runs but was maybe unlucky.

Here, the peripherals say that Miz should be better at run prevention--significantly better--and ERA tells us...that he is! A full run per 9 innings better.

I just can't, in my mind, say that 20 extra innings is worth a full run per start (or put that much faith in reading between the lines, re Yellow Kid's post).

I also looked at their RA and there wasn't much difference: six unearned runs for Sanchez, eight for Miz...in fewer innings, yes, but still close.

In the classic bWAR/fWAR split that I described, I can usually see a case for either pitcher. Here, Miz's 5.1 to 4.6 lead in fWAR is the only one of the two that makes sense to me: slight workhorse edge to Sanchez, clear dominance edge to Miz.

But if PCA goes cold and Sanchez keeps consistently chugging away every 5 days, I think Sanchez is worth some #1 votes.

Ohtani is a big question mark, we know he's got a bum knee but now a strained bicep! his MVP campaign novelty has worn off as a DH who pitched the first half of the season and then is essentially Mike Trout* or Brice Turang when healthy.

*@mookie: why I isolated Shohei's offensive WAR was to see his offensive comps

@clemenza, you honestly won't have to worry about it much longer as Miz will soon be shut down/IL-managed/innings-capped and the gap between he and Sanchez will continue to grow.

right now is a static point where we still have a vivid glimpse Miz's potential, but he's simply not a workhorse and will be handled with kids' gloves as MIL need to plan their October run.

Oh, I know--and I was crazy not to think about that when I placed the bet.

Personally, I'd go for PCA at this point, who supposedly is doing historic things defensively (according to a piece I read earlier), plus his stellar offense.

to be clear, Sanchez’ bWar lead is not because of innings pitched. bWar thinks Sanchez has been better than Miz on a per-inning basis, so if innings were identical Sanchez would still be ahead. (although the innings are what make the lead between them relatively large)

Wow...honestly, I think that's insane. Reminds me of how Teddy Higuera has a higher bWAR than Roger Clemens for the '86 season, which makes no sense at all: Clemens had a lower ERA, lower FIP, better WHIP, and better K/BB ratio (and pitched a few more innings). I wrote a "Hey Bill" to James about that...his response:

No, I couldn't explain that.Higuera was a great pitcher, though, for just a few years. My guess would be that the slightly absurd WAR for Higuera vs. Clemens in 1986 is based on two things:

1) the belief that Milwaukee County Stadium in 1986 was a better hitter's park than Fenway (which of course is not TRUE, but there's a one-year fluke in the data which gives that appearance), and

2) Some sort of nonsense about fielding. If you assume or believe or conclude somehow that Boston's defense in 1986 was much, much better than Milwaukee's and then you subtract the defensive contribution from the pitcher's results, you could reach that conclusion. Again, not true; Boston's defense in 1986 was somewhere between "bad" and "horrifically terrible", with one or two good defensive players.

for an MVP level argument, i'm more biased toward bWAR than fWAR which leans a bit extremely on FIP as a paradigm input.

otm

In the majority of cases, I'd agree with that too. But in this case, FIP just mirrors what everything else does. It says that Miz is two/thirds of a run better than Sanchez--he's actually a full run per game better.

(As things stand today, I'll add; by the end of the season, as that IP gap widens, Sanchez will quite likely be the better MVP choice.)

"what everything else says"

Misiorowski had a decent start today--6 IP, 3 runs, 9 K--but he does seem to be susceptible to the HR lately (two today, eight in last six starts).

He was cruising through 4 IP (8Ks, 1 hit, 0 walks, ~60 pitches) but then he suddenly looked a bit human in innings 5-6: He stopped generating whiffs (only 1K) and the Twins started making hard contact: 2 HRs, 2 singles and a walk.

Cris Sanchez = 7 IP, 7K, 0BB, 0 Runs

nice to see him finding groove again after a mini rough patch