The 2004 Postseason Awards Thread!!

Glad to see Vernon Wells win one (too bad he had a subpar year offensively, but I'm not worried since he's young).

Of course, the most surprising name here is Jeter, which garnered an OMGWTFLOLROFFLE reaction from me ... who here can speak to his 2004 defensive stats? Was he as mediocre as he has been in past years? Or has he improved?

1B -- Mark Teixeira, Texas
2B -- Alfonso Soriano, Texas
SS -- Miguel Tejada, Baltimore
3B -- Melvin Mora, Baltimore
OF -- Manny Ramirez, Boston
OF -- Gary Sheffield, New York
OF -- Vladimir Guerrero, Anaheim
C -- (tie) Ivan Rodriguez, Detroit; Victor Martinez, Cleveland
DH -- David Ortiz, Boston

National League

1B -- Albert Pujols, St. Louis
2B -- Mark Loretta, San Diego
SS -- Jack Wilson, Pittsburgh
3B -- Adrian Beltre, Los Angeles
OF -- Barry Bonds, San Francisco
OF -- Jim Edmonds, St. Louis
OF -- Bobby Abreu, Philadelphia
C -- Johnny Estrada, Atlanta
P -- Livan Hernandez, Montreal

Does anyone really pay attention to Silver Slugger awards though?

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3593

I voted, as usual. I didn't give you guys the link since I knew
Dahlem would go for Sheffield!

P: Maddux, Cubbies (his 14th, wtf)
C: Mike Matheny, St. Lou
1B: Todd Helton, Rockies
2B: Luis Castillo, Marlins
SS: Cesar Izturis, Dodgers
3B: Scottie Rolen, St. Lounatics
OF: Steve Finley, Dodgers
OF: Andruw Jones, Braves
OF: Jimmy Edmonds, St. Louis Blingnals

http://www.aarongleeman.com/2004_10_31_baseballblog_archive.html#109947392188133068

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1918397

I *told* you guys 15-14 eliminated Big Ugly...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1920086

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1920845

The fact that the Twins succeed in that crap-ass division despite their dopey personnel moves (or lack of moves) infuriates me. You got lots of OF prospects? Resign Shannon Stewart! You have a lack of power in your lineup? Drag yr feet in giving Justin Morneau some ABs! You need to make a trade at the deadline? Don't do a damn thing & just let your young vibrant farm talent stagnate like fallow crops!

In other words: GO INDIANS!

G!, I think folks like Mike Marshall rec'd some Cy consideration back in the swinging late 70's.

i'm surprised phil garner and tony larussa didn't get more support.

But, whatever, managers are overrated.

Until just now I never realized that he'd gotten so much respect in CY balloting in other years -- he was in the top five in three other years.

I'm not sure how Marshall's arguments fit into what we now believe about developing pitchers ... on one hand, Marshall didn't blow out his arm due to his approach because he was effective into his late 30's. On the other hand, he didn't start pitching that way until he was in his late 20's, when his arm was fully developed and therefore had a chance to stand up to more abuse. But the age thing might have been part of his thought process -- after all, how could he study kin and not understand that stuff?

Then you have Billy Martin, who was a lunatic with the A's pitching staff in the early 80s and probably shortened the careers of Norris, McCarty, Langford and Keough by running them into the ground. All of those guys arms broke down.

Checking out Mike Marshall and the 1974 Dodgers is interesting. The pitching staff also had Andy Messersmith throwing 292 innings and Don Sutton with 274! That year was also when Tommy John blew out his arm and had his famous surgery. The Dodgers pretty much only used nine pitchers the entire season. Could you imagine a team doing this now?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/1974.shtml

There's actually a good debate about it in the Neyer/James Pitchers book between BJ and the 2 guys who originated Pitcher Abuse Points
( http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=148 ).

Re Florida, what kind of year did Josh Beckett have in '04?

Player, team 	1st 	2nd 	3rd 	4th 	5th 	6th 	7th 	8th 	9th 	10th 	Total
Bonds, S.F. 	24 	7 	1 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	407
Beltre, L.A. 	6 	21 	3 	2 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	311
Pujols, St.L. 	1 	1 	20 	5 	4 	1 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	247
Rolen, St.L. 	1 	3 	7 	12 	5 	3 	-- 	-- 	-- 	-- 	226
Edmonds, St.L. 	-- 	-- 	-- 	5 	12 	6 	2 	3 	3 	-- 	160

Bonds = $18M.

Sure, but you could say that about a lot of guys. I'm sure you could make that arugment for almost every MVP winner ever, and compare their MVP year with some of their other good years, and say that they won in part because certain teammates also had career years.

An interesting historical example: if you compare Ted Williams' stats in the 40's (with great Boston teams) with his stats in the 50's (with meh Boston teams), he put up great OPS in each decade but obv. in the 40's he had monster RBI and runs scored as well. So one could say he couldn't have had his greatest years without a lot of help either.

I tried to think of a comparable, more recent example, but none came to mind. Maybe Juan Gonzalez if he can stay healthy. Same for Junior.

Baseball's Top 20: Ranked By Forbes Total Production Number
Player 	2002 Team 	Position 	At Bats 	Total Bases 	FTPN 	FTPN Rank 	2003 Salary 	Salary Rank
Barry Bonds 	SF 	OF 	403 	322 	767 	1 	$15,000,000 	9
Jim Thome 	CLE 	1B 	480 	325 	646 	2 	11,166,667 	22
Manny Ramirez 	BOS 	OF 	436 	282 	628 	3 	17,185,177 	3
Brian Giles 	PIT 	OF 	497 	309 	626 	4 	8,563,003 	37
Alex Rodriguez 	TEX 	SS 	624 	389 	605 	5 	22,000,000 	1
Larry Walker 	COL 	OF 	477 	287 	593 	6 	12,666,667 	13
Vladimir Guerrero 	MON 	OF 	614 	364 	592 	7 	11,500,000 	19
Jason Giambi 	NYY 	1B 	560 	335 	589 	8 	11,428,571 	20
Magglio Ordonez 	CWS 	OF 	590 	352 	585 	9 	9,000,000 	33
Todd Helton 	COL 	1B 	553 	319 	575 	10 	10,600,000 	24
Sammy Sosa 	CHC 	OF 	556 	330 	574 	11 	16,875,000 	5
Rafael Palmeiro 	TEX 	1B 	546 	312 	571 	12 	9,000,000 	34
Lance Berkman 	HOU 	OF 	578 	334 	570 	13 	3,500,000 	107
Mike Sweeney 	KC 	1B 	471 	265 	567 	14 	11,000,000 	23
Albert Pujols 	STL 	OF 	590 	331 	561 	15 	900,000 	160
Shawn Green 	LA 	OF 	582 	325 	552 	16 	15,666,667 	6
Jeff Kent 	SF 	2B 	623 	352 	549 	17 	6,949,840 	55
Chipper Jones 	ATL 	OF 	548 	294 	544 	18 	13,333,333 	10
Jim Edmonds 	STL 	OF 	144 	267 	542 	19 	8,333,333 	40
Carlos Delgado 	TOR 	1B 	143 	277 	541 	20 	18,700,000 	2

You do realize that I think A-Rod is the most overrated player in the game?

Sure, but you could say that about a lot of guys. I'm sure you could make that arugment for almost every MVP winner ever, and compare their MVP year with some of their other good years, and say that they won in part because certain teammates also had career years.

But Kent was never the same player when he batted behind Bonds. I showed the stats on another thread. He could hit a fastball, sure.

1991 NL
Adjusted OPS+

Bonds-PIT 161
Clark-SFG 152
Bonilla-PIT 150
McGriff-SDP 147
Johnson-NYM 145
Larkin-CIN 143
Strawberry-LAD 140
Pendleton-ATL 139
Kruk-PHI 139
Calderon-MON 139

And this was in a period where BB was a phenomenal LF, too.

??? Kent's an asshole too. Happy? They both made it very easy to dislike the Giants over the last decade or so.

"Pendleton's MVP was one of the sillier "intangible" awards:"

Yeah, his intangible league leading BA, total bases, hits, etc, on a playoff team on which he was pretty unarguably the best position player (Bobby Bonilla>>>Ron Gant). . . yeah, total fluff.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/images/baseballs_best/92nlcs_gm7_lib.gif

OK, Pendleton led the league in hits and TB, and I'm still unimpressed (I bet you like RBI, and he wasn't in the top ten). Alex, you don't have to accept OPS, Bill James, or Moneyball, but an acquaintance with them will help you argue with our hyperbole.

King Kaufman of Salon:

Nov. 16, 2004 | I wish you could have been with me in St. Louis Monday to listen to the sportstalk radio reaction to Barry Bonds winning the National League Most Valuable Player award, and not one of the trio of Cardinals in "contention," Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen.

I don't know how you all would have fit in my car, but we'd have worked something out.

It was pretty funny listening to the echo chamber of outrage as Cardinals fans, including the various hosts, agreed with each other that something was very, very wrong when Bonds could not only win, but by so much. Bonds got 24 of 32 first-place votes, with Adrian Beltre of the Dodgers collecting six, and Pujols and Rolen getting one each.

A somewhat reasonable argument can be made that Bonds shouldn't get any awards while a cloud of suspicion regarding steroids hangs over him, but this argument wasn't made. The subject was on-field performance, and not a word was mentioned about Bonds having one of the greatest offensive seasons in history. It was first-class comedy.

There was a lot of talk about how if Bonds can win the MVP while playing for a non-playoff team, Mark McGwire should retroactively get the '98 award, because that was the ostensible argument for his losing out to Sammy Sosa of the Cubs. I remember that year's MVP as a kind of consolation prize to Sosa for losing the home run derby, but whatever. I'll stipulate the point.

Cards fans should be careful with this argument, though, because the world didn't begin in 1998, and four Cardinals have won or shared an MVP award in a year St. Louis didn't make the postseason. And almost every other team has guys who might have won but didn't because the team finished out of the money. How many MVP awards do you think Willie Mays should have won with the Giants? A half dozen? He won two.

The echo chamber had convinced itself that Rolen was the real MVP, which is funny because not only was Rolen not the best player in the league, he wasn't even the best third baseman in the N.L. playoffs. He was ninth on my highly theoretical ballot, which means he had a very good year, but not an MVP year...

I've already made my case for Bonds, which is so obvious that I really find it hard to believe a quarter of the people charged with voting for the MVP had the gall to vote for someone else. I wonder what season they were watching, and what color the sky is in their world.

Here's the rest of my ballot, which counts for nothing, and which I put almost no thought into because I don't think it matters who's second through 10th in a one-horse race:

2. Albert Pujols, Cardinals
3. Adrian Beltre, Dodgers
4. Jim Edmonds, Cardinals
5. Todd Helton, Rockies
6. Bobby Abreu, Phillies
7. Mark Loretta, Padres
8. Lance Berkman, Astros
9. Scott Rolen, Cardinals
10. J.D. Drew, Braves

Abreu, by the way, finished in a five-way tie for 23rd with, among others, Armando Benitez and Vinnie Castilla. That's almost as bad as Bonds not winning unanimously. Helton, who has finished in the top 10 three of the last four years, was tied for 16th with Juan Pierre(!), despite his stats for once not being wildly inflated by Coors Field. He hit well on the road too.

Must not have shown up in the voters' tea leaves.

Yeah, I think RBIs is a real stat too, but I'd note that Pendleton didn't have quite the line-up in front him to drive home that Bonds did. And NOT remembering (and making fun of myself for such) how a particular stat is calculated isn't quite the same as not being familiar with it, but hey I'll leave the statistical heavyweights like you and Bill James to figure out what I should be valueing instead of RBIs, hits, total bases, batting average, slugging %, etc.

RBIs are a team stat, opportunity-based as you say. Using rate stats helps wrench the individual from the team context so you can evaluate HIM. I still don't know why MVP is the award people most want to base on team performance (tho A-Rod overcame that in '03).

Well deserved.

That was good!

Roughly interesting: Mays and Musial both led the NL in Adjusted OPS six times (Aaron 3), which would suggest they lost at least a couple MVPs to pennant-winning players (MW, KB) or gaudy HR hitters (Banks).

Ortiz FOURTH is a bit much...

thank you, end of story. i mean, sort of. debates are healthy but this is nevertheless fact.

morbius i assume you mean he placed too high?

was this the expected outcome or not, i've forgotten. i think it was.

Arguing against the two monster years that Banks had in 58/59 seems crazy (esp. since it isn't like either of these two guys were playing for contenders.) But I'm sure his OPS is lower so there ya go, argue away.

Banks had great years in '58-59, but the numbers are Wrigley-inflated; in '58 Mays hit .347 and finished 2nd in slugging, playing in a disadvantageous park. And Aaron had one of his greatest years in '59.

And I always end the "definition" debate by asking who can be more valuable than the best player? (Which would certainly elicit a bullshitty answer from Jeff Brantley, whose favorite "White Way" Rolen was first on one ballot.)

Down-ballot crimes: Mora 5 points, Jose Guillen 2:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?page=almvpvoting

Ichiro only got one #3 vote and no #4 votes.

"the whole 'does mvp mean best player or player most valuable to this team or best player on best team or what' debate is what keeps the award interesting"

thank you, end of story. i mean, sort of. debates are healthy but this is nevertheless fact.
I completely agree with you John, but unfortunately there are way too many people who stick like gangbusters to only one side of the equation, continually threatening death to the other side. Like last year for instance, so many people were ready to start riots at the mere *mention* of ARod as a serious candidate because he didn't play on a winning team. It's like baseball rockism!

that's very true mir, but i didn't notice the brewing riots and in my experience the other side is far more vocal and far more entrenched. (cuz they have SCIENCE on their side, obviously)

ps i've gotta know how you do those cyrillic characters!

Those are Greek characters, but Leeeeeeeee was in fact using Cyrillic characters a couple of weeks ago ...

But those are all the same thing. And yeah, the "non-scientific side" (I call them the Shannon Stewartites) just gets to make stuff up.

yeah that's what i really meant, that was an incredible post, and i saw his email and got confused

gygax!!!!!