2012 National League MVP

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Marley23

I agree that “consideration” is a strange word for this. But basically he asked MLB to declare him ineligible and they did. I assume that in the offseason they’ll pass a rule that says either you can’t win the batting title if you are suspended for PEDs, or that you can’t win it if you didn’t get enough at-bats because of a PED suspension.

I wonder what would have happened if he had been suspended in May instead of August…and served his 50 games and then returned to finish out the season. Would any of this have been an issue at all?

[Bullitt]

@Suburban_Plankton

I wonder what would have happened if he had been suspended in May instead of August…and served his 50 games and then returned to finish out the season. Would any of this have been an issue at all?

I think it wouldn’t be an issue, mainly because his batting would drop off and he wouldn’t be in the running. His career has shown enoughh ups and downs that you can probably tell when he’s been doping, and not.

If he plays next year, it’ll be interesting to see how well he does.

[etv78]

Votto or Bruce?

[Kiros]

@etv78

Votto or Bruce?

Votto is the best hitter in the majors on a per-AB basis, and it’s not really close - .474 OBP (!!!) - but he missed, what, 50 games? That’s probably a few too many in a year where there are a lot of really good NL candidates.

Bruce had a decent, above average sort of year, but it was actually a down year for him compared to the last couple and he’s two or three tiers short of this discussion.

I could be happy with any of the four mentioned in the OP, Posey, or Headley. This is a much more interesting discussion than the AL, largely because there is no undeniable right answer here. I guess if you put a gun to my head I’d say Posey, regardless of how much I’d like Braun to win it again to send the PED-righteousness types into a tizzy.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@echo7tango

Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals

@Tom_Scud

Buster Posey is leading the league in WAR and is playing for a division winner

It’s interesting to compare the two, since both are catchers playing on teams that have made it to the postseason.

Looking around the Web, Posey seems to be the favorite to win the MVP. Here’s one sportswriter’s reasoning, which compares Posey to Molina:

It can be argued that Posey isn’t even the best catcher in the National League this year. Yadier Molina is clearly the superior defender and has hit 324/.382/.513 with 20 home runs and, my favorite part, 12 stolen bases in 15 attempts. Molina has thrown out 47 percent of opposing basestealers to Posey’s 31 percent, and Molina has caught about 140 more innings.

That said, both throw out runners more often than the league average and, while Molina is clearly the superior thrower, his reputation also plays a role. There have been 48 fewer attempts made against Molina, and Posey has actually thrown out more runners on the season. Quantifying the other aspects of catching are more difficult, but to my eye, while Molina is obviously the better defender and having a fantastic season at the plate, Posey is accomplished enough behind the dish that his advantage beside it (including roughly 30 additional points of both on-base percentage and slugging) is enough to give him the edge.

Posey leads not just catchers – not just the National League but all of baseball – in the park-adjusted OPS+ (171 to Molina’s 140, not even close), and while Molina has the edge in Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (bWAR), the two are effectively tied in that imprecise statistic (6.6 for Molina to 6.4 for Posey).

The way I view this race is that there are four men (the three listed here and Molina, who is an extremely close fourth but just doesn’t have the stats to compare to the other two men listed here) who are almost equally deserving of the award. Forced to choose, I take Posey.

It’s quite possible that Yadi has been, all things considered, more valuable to the Cardinals this year than Posey has been to the Giants, but if so, some of those things considered are hard to measure and quantify.