Ryan Braun of Milwaukee Brewers wins NL MVP - ESPN

Matt Kemp finished second in the NL MVP balloting

Am I being fair by leaving Braun completely out of the headline when he won the MVP? Let me put it this way - I stole my headline from the one at MLB.com, the game's official page. That vote is a major upset, which is not to diminish Braun. Braun is a great kid and a great player. He was clearly the second-best player in the league. But second is not first. Matt Kemp won the gold glove in center field and put up .324 39-126 numbers with 40 stolen bases. In terms of who actually was the most valuable player, literally, Kemp was 10.0 wins above replacement. Braun was 7.7. In essence, that means if Kemp had suffered a season-ending injury in spring training, the Dodgers would likely had won 10 fewer games playing with a replacement-level player. Or, to word it another way, Kemp was significantly more valuable to his team than Braun was to his. If they had been traded in spring training, the Dodgers would have won even fewer games, and the Brewers even more. Braun won the voting because Kemp's teammates sucked.

To give you an idea of how good Kemp's season was:

Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Albert Pujols and Willie Mays averaged between 8 and 9 WAR per 162 games. Mantle averaged almost exactly 8. Only one player in history ever averaged more than 10, and that would be a certain Mr. George Herman Ruth.

Joe DiMaggio won three MVPs and his BEST season was 9.4. Mike Schmidt won three MVPs, and the BEST of those three seasons was 9.1.

In the past 20 baseball seasons, only two men untainted by steroids have reached 10.0 - Kemp and Pujols. (To be fair, Barry Bonds had some 10s in the years before the steroid epidemic.)

Is this the worst MVP choice in recent history? No, not by a long shot. There have been many worse. Making bad choices is what these voters do. Bill James Online lists the worst in history.

I elaborate on one of my favorites. In 1974 Mike Schmidt had a 10.5 WAR and lost to Steve Garvey, who had a mediocre 5.1. Garvey was nowhere near the top ten players in the league that year, nor was he among the top three players on his own team. You obviously can't compare the 2011 vote to that. Kemp lost to a great player who really was the second-best in the league. Schmidt, probably the best hitter in the league and also a superior third baseman, lost to an average-hitting first baseman. To make the two situations approximately equal, Kemp would have had to lose in 2011 to Lance Berkman, who had a 5.2 WAR and was not the best player on his own team.

(And, by the way, poor Mr. Schmidt finished 6th in the MVP balloting in 1974!)

But that was 1974, when Bill James and other sabermetricians had yet to have an impact on our understanding of the game, and nobody really realized how embarrassing it was to select a first baseman with a .342 OBP and a .469 slugging average. Criticizing the 1974 voters for selecting Garvey is like criticizing medieval physicians for using leeches. They just didn't know any better. On the other hand, a physician today should know enough not to use leeches, and a voter today should realize how significant WAR is, and should know not to punish a guy because his teammates suck.

Reader Mike said...

I'm kind of surprised by your comments. Having the highest WAR is a rarely considered metric in the MVP race. It was obvious at the close of the season that voting between the two players would be a near dead heat. Braun got in because his team went to the postseason. That has happened many times before, and will happen many times in the future. Let's face it... both players deserve to be MVP based on their stats. To even ask the question of whether this is one of the worst votes in history is pretty unfair to Braun and his amazing season.


Uncle Scoopy said...

The reason I asked the question of whether this is one of the worst votes in history is simple - because objectively it IS a bad vote. (I point out that it is far from the worst in history.) This is not like questioning an Oscar choice. There are pertinent facts here. I mean no disrespect to Braun at all. He was the second-best player in the league. That is great. He's a great player and a great guy. I live in Wisconsin and he is actually my favorite player, and my son's as well. I'm glad for him. But the facts are the facts. He was a LONG way behind the best player. Braun had an excellent season. Kemp had a historic season. As I mentioned, it's Kemp and Pujols alone in the Ten Club among active players untainted by steroids. He just had a season better than Joe DiMaggio's best. Braun has never been anywhere near that level.

I think the basic problem is that people don't understand the vast distance between 10.0 and 7.7.

Kemp's 10.0 season is equal to Gehrig's 1930, when Columbia Lou hit .379 with 174 RBI. It is equal to Hornsby's 1925, when he batted .403 and won the triple crown with 39-143. Yeah, it was that good. Other 10.0 seasons: Home Run Baker's best year; Ernie Banks's best year; Hank Aaron's best year; Norm Cash's legendary 1961 season; Rickey Henderson's best two years (he reached exactly 10.0 twice, never more); etc.

On the other hand, Braun's 7.7 is equivalent to Duke Snider's 1956, when he hit .292 with 43 homers. And that season looks impressive compared to some other 7.7 seasons: Bobby Murcer in 1977 (.292, 33 homers); Jim Fregosi in 1970 (.278, 22 homers in a difficult offensive environment).

In short, there is a vast gulf between the two years, something which is not immediately apparent to the casual observer, who sees two sorta similar seasons.

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You said: "Braun got in because his team went to the postseason."

I agree. He got in because Kemp's teammates suck. Same point I made, worded differently. Problem is, Kemp can't control that.

You said: "Having the highest WAR is a rarely considered metric in the MVP race."

Yes, I agree with that too. In fact I might say that "rarely" is an exaggeration. I don't know that it has ever been considered by anyone, and it's a recent metric, so even if it has been considered, it could not have been considered for very long. But that fact tells you something about the voters, not the relative merit of the players. WAR=valuable. The two terms are exact synonyms. In fact, the player with the highest WAR is quite often the MVP for that very reason, because it is what "valuable" is supposed to mean. WAR measures how many games a player was worth to his team. I already made the point that if Braun and Kemp had been traded in spring training and had the same seasons, the Brewers would have done better and the Dodgers worse. (Not to mention that Kemp's stats would have looked even better in comparison by playing home games in Miller Park instead of Dodger Stadium. Braun's road OPS was .926, Kemp's .990)

"That has happened many times before, and will happen many times in the future."

I agree with the first clause of that sentence, which is a statement of fact. However ... the fact that people have historically made bad decisions doesn't justify the latest one, any more than the medieval use of leeches justifies trying the technique today. We should know better.

I don't know whether the second clause of your sentence is accurate or not, since it is a prediction, but I am adding whatever small voice I have to keep that prediction from coming true.

Reader Zach said...

I understand the wins above replacement stat, and the fact that Kemp was statistically better than Braun, but being around baseball and following it as closely as I have; the difference between Kemp's season and Braun's is that past the middle part of June, Kemp had NO meaningful at-bats.

Most players will tell you that you are performing your best when you are relaxed and having fun.

Every single at-bat of Braun's mattered to his team. The Dodgers where so far out of the race by the break, the pressure of a post season run was out of the picture. (Granted, you still want to perform and play well. Still, at that point, if you don't perform well, it's not going to matter in the end) Look at it this way; if you take Braun's season away and he doesn't do as well, the Brewers probably don't make the post season. It changes the entire playoff picture. If Kemp's season is taken away, the Dodgers are still not in the playoffs.

This is an individual award for the player who impacts the league the most.

The season Braun had was a greater impact than that of Kemp. Not to take away from Kemp's accomplishments this year, they both deserve this award, but I think the voters got it right.

Uncle Scoopy said...

Point by point:

You said: "Most players will tell you that you are performing your best when you are relaxed and having fun."

Players say a lot of things. They say a hitter performs better when he has a great hitter hitting behind him, for example. They say it's bad luck when you see a nightingale crossing a full moon. They say you get warts from toads. They say Nolan Ryan was a better pitcher than Greg Maddux. They say they never took steroids. But when most of those things are subjected to the cold lights of reason and evidence, they turn out to be fabrications, urban myths and superstitions unsupported by reality. I've seen no statistical evidence that being out of the playoff picture aids a player's individual performance. I have, however, seen some evidence that Dodger Stadium hurts offensive performance, so I would take that one into consideration.

You said: "This is an individual award for the player who impacts the league the most."

Obviously not. By that logic, a player from a mediocre down-to-the-wire playoff team which sneaks in at the last minute would have a massive advantage over the same level player who is simply the best player on a great team that would have won even without him. Not only is that not the way it should work, but it's also not the way it does work. If anything, the opposite is true. If you don't penalize the league's best player for being on a team so good it doesn't need him, why should you punish the same player for being on a team so poor it can't be saved by him?

Furthermore, the voters do not consistently apply that principle or any principle. In 2003 A-Rod won the MVP while playing for the hopeless last-place Texas Rangers. Where was the principle that year? They gave it to the guy with the highest WAR, even though his teammates sucked. The "impact" argument is only dragged out every once in a while to justify a choice made for some other reasons, whatever they might be.

You said, "They both deserve this award."

Not correct. It is correct to say they are both great players, but only one of them deserves the award, because his season was WAY better than the other guy's. It would be different if the seasons were almost identical, but as I explained above, there is a mammoth distance between 10.0 and 7.7. The distance between Kemp and Braun (2.3) was about the same as the distance between Braun and Hunter Pence (2.5). If Kemp did not exist, you could then argue that Braun would deserve the award, but Kemp does exist.