I'm Back!

After a nearly one-year hiatus, I've decided to re-take-up (soooo not an actual English phrase) blogging. Sorry for the lack of posts in the last calendar year. I was...busy?
 
Okay...let's talk awards.  No beef so far with either of the Rookies of the Year (Coghlan and Bailey) or AL Cy Young winner, Zack Greinke.  It's a lock Albert Pujols wins NL MVP, so the only real drama seems to be NL Cy Young and AL MVP.


NL Cy Young 
In the senior circuit, it's essentially a race between Tim Lincecum, and whichever Cardinals starter you like better- Chris Carpenter or Adam Wainwright.  That said, here's a look at their numbers from this season in a way you probably haven't looked at them yet.  Based on the numbers they compiled throughout the course of the year, here is the average pitching line for each of our contenders in the 2009 season.



Lincecum- 7.04 IP, 5.25 H, 2.13 BB, 1.94 ER, 8.16 K's, 107.5 pitches

Carpenter- 6.88 IP, 5.57 H, 1.36 BB, 1.71 ER, 5.14 K's, 95.4 pitches

Wainwright- 6.85 IP, 6.35 H, 1.94 BB, 2.00 ER, 6.24 K's, 106.3 pitches



Looking at it this way, trendy stats like quality start percentage, WHIP, and batting average or OPS against take care of themselves.  


So what do we take away from these three average pitching lines?  Whose would you rather have?  Well, first-off we see Lincecum recorded an average of half an out more per start than his next closest competitor.  I like that a lot.  We also see that in terms of baserunners allowed per start (7.38 for Lincecum, 6.93 for Carpenter, 8.29 for Wainwright) Wainwright was the least impressive.  He didn't pitch as deep into games as the other two, took more pitches to get there than Carpenter and almost as many as Lincecum, plus he allowed the most runners by far.  To top it all off, Lincecum has the clear edge in strikeouts, which in some respects makes his higher walk rate less relevant.  And when you factor in Carpenter's 28 starts compared to 32 and 34 for Lincecum and Wainwright respectivley, it's a cakewalk as far as I'm concerned.  Lincecum was clearly the best of all NL pitchers in '09 with Carpenter second and Wainwright third.  The actual winner is announced today at 2PM.



AL MVP
Much tougher to quantify in my opinion because the main contenders- Derek Jeter, Joe Mauer, and Mark Teixeira are different kinds of players.  Jeter is your prototypical leadoff hitter who handles the bat well, sees lots of pitches, gets on base, runs and gives his team a 1-0 lead.  Mauer is a classic number two or three hitter- high average, lots of balls in play, good line drive stroke and tough to strike out.  And Tex is about as good of a middle-of-the-order, thumper type as you could ask for- a threat to go yard every time up with tons of RBI.  And all three won Gold Gloves this year (although some pundits have questioned whether any of them deserved it).


As a starting point, here are their basic numbers from 2009:


Jeter- .334 AVG, 18 HR, 66 RBI, 107 R, 30 SB, .871 OPS
Mauer- .365 AVG, 28 HR, 96 RBI, 94 R, 4 SB, 1.031 OPS
Teixeira- .292 AVG, 39 HR, 122 RBI, 103 R, 2 SB, .948 OPS


All very impressive.  


Digging deeper (because I am a firm believer that an MVP candidate finishes the season strong and has to get a lot of big hits throughout the course of the season) here are some other things to consider.  Jeter hit .351 after the break and had a .450 OBP in September, but hit just .259 in his 135 at-bats with men in scoring position.  Tex hit .313 after the break including a .343, 7 HR month of September.  He also hit .355 with 31 RBI in 62 at-bats with runners in scoring position and 2 outs.  And while he hit just .264 overall with men in scoring position, he also had an on-base percentage of more than .400 in that scenario.  So in those 174 at-bats, he had 46 hits and 39 walks- selective in that good Yankee lineup. 


Here's where Joe Mauer is no ordinary Joe, though.  He hit .358 in the second half, and had an OPS of at least .997 in each of the following situations: leading off an inning, nobody on, at least one baserunner on, runner(s) in scoring position, runner(s) in scoring position and 2 out, and the bases loaded.  To top it all off, in 113 at-bats in September and October while his team was in a dogfight to get into the postseason, he hit .354 with twice as many walks (24) as strikeouts (12).  And he did this while playing the most physically demanding position on the diamond.


It's because of that fact that I give the nod to Mauer for MVP with Tex second and Jeter a close third.  AL MVP will be announced Monday.