2008 MLB Awards : AL MVP

Every year, at least one award has to be a wide-open mess, right?  That's the AL MVP this year.  The only guys in the top-10 OPS who are going to the postseason are Youkilis (#4) and Guerrero (just sneaking into the #10 spot).  It would be hard to give it to Guerrero because his revival coincides with Texeira's arrival in Los Angeles of Anaheim.  Milton Bradley led the league in OPS, but barely cracked 500 plate appearances and so his totals aren't very impressive.  Alex Rodriguez's numbers are nearly identical to Carlos Quentin's; A-rod has to do better to win another MVP at this point, and Quentin has been absent due to his own stupidity when his team needed him -- would the White Sox and Twins be playing a 1 game playoff if Quentin had been available for all of September?  I'm guessing not.  Huff through Cabrera all have nice numbers, but their teams didn't exactly contend this year. 

 

Then we have 6 guys in the 11-20 OPS spots who are going to the playoffs (or were contending for the playoffs on the last day of the season); Jermaine Dye (#11 with .884), Justin Morneau (#12, .877), Evan Longoria (#15, .874), Carlos Pena (#16, .871), Joe Mauer (t-17, .869), and Dustin Pedroia (t-17, .869).  15 points of OPS is barely any separation at all, but they can be differentiated a bit along the following lines:

• "high" SLG, "low" OBP : Dye & Longoria
• "middle" SLG, OBP : Morneau, Pena, Pedroia
• "low" SLG, "high" OBP : Mauer 

To my mind, each of these guys needs to do something different/better than Youkilis to remain in consideration.  That knocks out Dye, Longoria, and Pena, all of whom are #3-5 hitters with lower OBP, SLG and totals than Youkilis.

So... Morneau has more runs and RBIs than Youkilis.  I've read an awful lot about how many at-bats Morneau has had "with men on base", but I want to separate out the stats for when there's just a runner on first from those with men in scoring position.  Here are Morneau's lines:

By Situation

AB

R

H

2B

3B

HR

RBI

BB

HBP

SO

SB

CS

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Scoring Position

181

79

63

16

3

8

99

38

1

17

0

0

.348

.443

.602

1.045

1B Only

152

11

47

11

0

8

23

16

2

30

0

1

.309

.382

.539

.921

None On

287

7

77

20

1

7

7

22

0

37

0

0

.268

.320

.418

.738

And Youkilis's:

Scoring Position

147

66

55

14

1

8

78

23

3

24

1

1

.374

.445

.646

1.091

1B Only

121

17

41

11

0

13

29

16

2

21

2

4

.339

.424

.752

1.176

None On

270

8

72

18

3

8

8

23

7

63

0

0

.267

.340

.444

.784

So neither is particularly useful when no one's on base.  Youkilis is considerably better when there's only a guy on 1st, since he's got more power.  Both are about equally efficient driving in runners in scoring position (very roughly 99/219 = .452 RBIs/PA with RISP for Morneau vs. 78/170=.459 for Youkilis -- this doesn't take into account the total number of runners in scoring position, but I don't have time to do that work right now).  I'd probably take Youkilis as MVP over Morneau.

That leaves Mauer and Pedroia, "table setters" for Youkilis and Morneau, which complicates things because each player's success is dependent upon the other.  Joe Mauer is the only one in the top-40 OPS with more walks than strikeouts, though Pedroia comes admirably close.  I love players who do this, so now I just need a reason to pick a guy who sets the table over one who clears it.   I think there are good cases to make for all three of them, so let's give it to Mauer if he has a great play-in game against the White Sox and have Pedroia and Youkilis share it otherwise. 

Update: no soup for Mauer.