Who Would You Take?

I took king Felix first in our keeper draft! I REGRET NOTHING (except the rest of the that draft minus Hamels)!

I like Justin Verlander a lot. It's not the wins, honest (and obviously he had a head start on the other guys anyway). He's just very durable, very consistent (this is his fifth strong year in six), and would appear to be getting better. Johnson's great, but he does seem to be fragile. It's hard to vote against Hernandez or Lincecum. I don't know yet.

obv is really close, i voted timmy

then prob felix, verlandy, josh, jair

Lincy is probably the better of the two (Hernandez or Lincecum) - but if we're talking keepers, then Felix being 2 yrs the junior puts him over.

No Kershaw seems a bit suspect. Felix is the youngest and probably has the highest upside, but I like Timmy the best. I'd definitely vote Kershaw if he was there (youngest, left-handed and only getting better).

You could put him on there, I guess, but he falls on the other side of the age range I had in mind--Halladay and Sabathia and that generation on one side, anyone under the age of 25 on the other. It's meant to be a fairly narrow poll.

Felix easily..

Felix

Jurrjens gets good results but he has something like 66ks! Do not want.

Felix.

Verlander is close. He's the only one who can strike out the side in the ninth while hitting 98-100, right?

definitely felix, on account of age & least (perceived) injury risk

i would prob take david price #2 out of all these guys but

timmy, verlander, jurrjens, johnson

johnson is as good as any pitcher in the majors but i don't think anyone would go near him w/ his injury history

I probably shouldn't start second-guessing my own list, but Matt Cain should be on there (26, 65-67, 3.41, 1.206). He was 15-30 for two years where he pitched pretty well; the last three years, he's got to be a candidate for Top 10 in the game. His first two comps through the age of 25 on Baseball Reference's similarity scores are Smoltz and Sutton.

Cain isn't at the same level as the others on your list.

I'd also take Verlander or Felix because of the (perceived) lack of injury risk. Although the same should be said about Lincecum, but I think we're still not totally convinced that he can stay healthy! (which is justified ... like Pedro, he's probably too small to remain in one piece through his mid-30's)

I think Cain would have been a better pick than Jurrjens--he's not at the level of the other four, no.

I'm not as convinced as everyone else that Hernandez carries a low risk of injury. I don't have any special knowledge about his delivery or anything like that, but 1,300 innings by the age of 25 is a lot. I'm sure you can find lots of precedents to argue both sides of the case--guys like him who burned out, and guys who went on to long careers.

cain is definitely better than jurrjens, but his stats are a bit park aided & he's not as good the other four guys on this list

but he's super durable, so you have to take that into equation

I'd take the King without hesitation. Verlander is a very close second.

I'll cast the only vote for Verlander. Obviously a great deal of my vote is based on perceived durability, and there's no way of ever being sure about that. Try to imagine voting in a similar poll in 2007. I'd have to backtrack to figure out which five guys would have been on there, but one for sure would have been Johan Santana, and probably C.C. Sabathia too. A vote for Sabathia over Santana would have looked bizarre, to put it mildly. Today, it'd look prescient. (I suppose some people, still counting on a comeback, would opt for Santana even today.) The one thing I'm probably doing that I usually try to avoid is giving too much weight to Verlander's great first half--I don't know if that's just a spike, or if he actually has become a pitcher more like Lincecum and Fernandez at their best.

Verlander and Hernandez both have been in the league for 6 seasons plus one abbreviated rookie year. In those years Felix has a forty point advantage in ERA, and has matched Verlander in strikeouts, complete games, and WHIP. Felix has a ten point advantage in ERA+, and an advantage in career WAR (27 to 24). Felix is ALSO three years younger than Verlander, and yet Verlander has amassed 100 fewer innings in his career.

Not sure how you can make a case that he's better than Felix unless you just want to be different.

No, he's not better than Felix. As I wrote above: "Obviously a great deal of my vote is based on perceived durability." The idea of "Who would you take?" was "who would you take going forward--i.e., with an eye 10 years down the road." If it was just who's been better to this point, it would have been a two-way poll between Hernandez and Lincecum. The fact that Hernandez has amassed so many innings at such a young age was one thing I took into consideration in voting for Verlander (realizing that this could also be used as an argument that Hernandez has already proven his durability).

I just have a feeling that Verlander is going to be year-in and year-out one of the top five or six pitchers in the game for the next decade. There will be always be guys having a better season than him, and that cast of characters will fluctuate from year to year. Sort of like a Glavine. On the other hand, his first half may have been a career peak; he may never be that good again. It's a guessing game.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Durability is only as good as your last start, though?

Hope not, or Verlander's worthless...

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Another great Verlander start. He's got four, maybe five starts left. I think he'd pretty much have to run the table to have a shot at MVP, but the way he's going, he may just do that.

no Pedro '99, so no

I basically agree, which I why I say he has to win every last start (and pitch well in all of them) to even have a chance. I'd like to see him do it to put that to the test. If he were to, I think he'd have two advantages over Pedro in '99. 1) The two silly people who left Pedro off their ballot altogether--I don't think you can assume that would happen again (which is not to say three or four wouldn't leave Verlander off this time; I just don't know). 2) More favorable competition. Pedro was up against huge numbers from I-Rod, Alomar, and Ramirez; Verlander would have Bautista, whose disadvantage in MVP voting is obvious. (Yes, I know--the offensive boom Pedro had to contend with should have strengthened his case, not distracted from it.) Anyway, probably all academic.

different BBWAA members vote for different awards in different years -- I don't think I knew that til last year. so perhaps it depends on how many 'young' turks are voting for which award.

And are we going to have as many awards threads as we do US politics threads?

No Tigers thread that I could see, so this seemed like a good place for a Verlander-related post.

:(

Last on Friday, August 26, 2011 11:00 PM
"Zumaya’s rate of striking out 9.01 batters per inning was the highest among all club relievers with at least 100 appearances since 1953": 2011 Detroit Tigers

Oops...On the bright side, you probably didn't want your Tigers thread hijacked either.

Verlander may deserve his own thread at this point in ILB history tbqh. Many lesser players have their own.[citation needed]

James weighs in, sort of:

Bill, I'll just go ahead and ask it: would you consider Justin Verlander a worthy selection for AL MVP, even if he got to 25 wins? He will win the pitching Triple Crown and probably lead the majors in IP.
Asked by: Dahlgren27

Answered: 9/8/2011
Well, my contribution to the discussion is to help construct analytical methods that enable people to see value more clearly. Whatever those methods show, I'll accept. But intuitively...I think if Verlander, Bautista, Ellsbury, Pedroia and Granderson were all up for draft, Verlander would probably be the first player drafted.

(I'm more interested in awards than most of you, so I didn't want to clutter up the Tigers thread with that.)

"Whatever those methods show, I'll accept. But intuitively...I think if Verlander, Bautista, Ellsbury, Pedroia and Granderson were all up for draft, Verlander would probably be the first player drafted."

I can't imagine that anyone would dispute this.

Yeah, hence "sort of"--he's not really addressing the question at all. But I expect it's as close as he'll come to doing so.

that seems to be a statement about future value, no?

I know. But I do think, as a long-time reader of James, that it's his way of obliquely saying that he doesn't think the idea of Verlander as MVP is outlandish. One of his longer pieces in one of the early Abstracts was a detailed analysis of the '78 MVP contest between Guidry and Rice. And without going downstairs to check, I think he concluded that Guidry was the MVP--at the very least, he was attempting to refute the idea that Guidry shouldn't even have been considered.

Yeah and there really the only guy who could reasonably challenge Verlander based on age and past performance is Pedroia and I just somehow don't think most teams would take him over Verlander for the next six or so years.

I think what's outlandish is that there are going to x # of writers who won't have Verlander on their ballots AT ALL.

Alex, we're in 100% agreement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpUyb37CFT4

"Future value" in this case means that it's a lot harder to develop a #1 starter than a star position player, no matter what the position (TINSTAAPP, etc.). So yeah, picking Verlander out of that bunch is a no-brainer.

Using the baseball Reference version, Verlander has almost caught up with Bautista for the WAR lead: 8.1 for Bautista, 7.8 for Verlander. (Ellsbury and Pedroia are somewhat close, Granderson is well back.) If they both end up more or less even, it won't be traditional stats vs. new stats, it'll simply be pitchers can be MVP vs. pitchers can't. I don't want to jump the gun, Verlander still has two starts left and getting hammered once would sink his MVP chances, but let's say Bautista and Verlander finish even. I might frame it as a guy who had a spectacular April and May for a fourth-place team vs. a guy who pitched brilliantly for five months as his team took over the lead and won the division going away. I could be way off, but I'm starting to sense Verlander may win.

I know I'm the only one who actually cares about this, but Baseball Reference has a Verlander-for-MVP thread going on its blog:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/15085

Comments #129 and #137 are mine.

The thing is you are likley overestimating the number of voters who will take note of Verlander's WAR (if you are saying tying or passing Bautista's will cement his case IRL).

Truthfully, I'm not sure what I'm saying by bringing WAR into it...except that, judging by some of the ILB commentary, I get the feeling that a lot of new-stat guys had made up their minds by August that Bautista was the AL MVP; by the end of the season, there's a possibility that they may be advocating for somebody with a lower WAR than Verlander.

I notice that even though the guy who started the Baseball Reference thread is making the case for why he thinks Verlander should win, in the 25th comment he says that he in fact thinks Bautista will get 2/3 of the first-place votes and win handily.

One other thing: even though this Verlander debate is hardly new, I don't think it's the kind of awards debate that some people dismiss as trivial. To me, it addresses some pretty fundamental beliefs about the relative value of pitching vs. hitting, and that's why I find it so interesting.

I think that it's pretty likely that Verlander is going to win it at this point.

I hate this he only pitches every 5th day argument.

Something else I don't entirely get is the argument that because Pedro didn't win in '99, therefore Verlander shouldn't win this year. If you're someone who thinks Pedro didn't deserve to win in '99, then okay, that makes sense--clearly Verlander hasn't been nearly as dominant this year. But if you believe Pedro should have won in '99, then the one doesn't have anything to do with the other.

I hate this he only pitches every 5th day argument.

I hate this too. On average the SP has a much larger influence on who wins or loses a game than any position player.

Something else I don't entirely get is the argument that because Pedro didn't win in '99, therefore Verlander shouldn't win this year.

I think people are saying that Pedro was a much bigger story in '99 than Verlander is this year, so if Pedro couldn't win then Verlander doesn't have a chance.

Yeah but the competition was much stronger that year as well.

Or at least it was perceived as being stronger.

yesterday's fan poll on yes was 'besides jesus montero, which 21-year-old hitter has the brightest future?'

options were starlin castro, eric hosmer, brett lawrie, mike stanton and one more i forget.

stanton won fairly easily

why besides Montero? would he really walk away with this one?

Did they exclude Montero just because they figured homerism would distort the vote?

yeah, i would imagine

Can I change my vote?

Cat's in the bag, and the bag's in the river. (Truthfully, I still think he has to win once more to secure a really good shot at the MVP; if he were to lose his final start, I think it'll be close.)

it's just a damn award

(I mean, that Eckersley won an MVP is fucking ridiculous)

Your antipathy to juvenile stuff like awards and Triple Crowns and hitting streaks is a matter of record.

Felix's peripherals this year are virtually identical to last year's, so it seems he's been a bit unlucky and is still every bit as good as he was when he won the CY. I wouldn't change my vote, at least not based on anything we've seen in the past couple of months.

According to that Baseball Reference thread, Verlander has been very lucky this year in a couple of regards: a really low BABIP (my god, what I am turning into?...anyway, somewhere in the .230s), and the fact that Valverde has yet to blow a single save for him (just wins, I know). And yeah, Felix's H/9 and K/BB aren't that much worse than last year. So even though I was the only vote for Verlander two months ago--explained above: a hunch that he would prove to be more durable than Hernandez or Lincecum--this year doesn't really change anything one way or the other. That was the point I was trying to make in that poll a while back on the worst Series winner, why I didn't think the 2000 Yankees belonged on that list: the 2000 Yankees were essentially the same team as the Yankee teams that surrounded them. Things tend to change little from year to year.

is there any accounting for the fact w/BABIP that maybe certain pitchers are simply good at eliciting poor contact and a low BABIP may have more to do with skill than luck?

ya - i would not change my vote from Felix either.

Verlander has been getting a high percentage of easy outs this year -- routine grounders, pop-outs, lazy outfield fly-outs. I think you can see that in the BABIP, considering the not-exactly-high-caliber defenders behind him.

sorry to burden you guys with the dumb-dumb stats that i employ to evaluate players, but...
2010 Hernandez: 2.27 ERA, 249.2 IP, 1.06 WHIP
2011 Verlander (so far): 2.29 ERA, 244.0 IP, 0.91 WHIP

not saying at all that Felix's season last year was better than Justin's this year. i just think they're not that far off.

xpost

15% better WHIP is a considerable difference.

The league ERA is down by a tenth of a run too...The two seasons would seem to be very close, and Baseball Reference indeed has ERA+ almost dead even (175 for Felix last year, 176 for Verlander this year).

"not saying at all that Felix's season last year was better than Justin's this year. i just think they're not that far off."

They aren't far off at all. Verlander is going to win the MVP (assuming he does) not because he's actually had the best year for a pitcher since Pedro '99 (he hasn't) but rather because of a dearth of a strong year by any position player on a contending team and because he's ended up an abnormally high win total.