MLB award ballots on Memorial Day

The Game Room
1

Here are my veteran award ballots on Memorial Day

AL MVP

Trout
Cabrera
Davis
Machado
Ellsbury (just to have 5, he’s way back)

AL Cy Young

Masterson
Buchholz (basically tied)
Shields
Iwakama
Moore
Darvish
Fister

(really among top 3)

NL MVP

CarGo (huge lead)
Votto
Justin Upton
Segura
Phillips
Cabrera
Bruce

(5-7 to fill ballot)

NL Cy Young

Zimmerman
Wainwright
Kershaw (super tight among Top 3)
Burnett
Garcia
Harvey

(Bottom 3 to fill ballot)

2

I like your inclusion of Phillips and Votto. Bruce isn’t deserving of consideration at this point, IMO. You know whom is playing lights out for the Reds and hardly gets noticed? Sin Shoo Choo. Dude’s been amazing in the leadoff role, better than I could have hoped for.

3

How do you figure? 5th in the league in fWAR, 4th in wOBA, 13th in average, 7th in on-base, 1st in slugging. Fangraphs thinks Votto (and Carlos Gomez, oddly) have both been more valuable than Gonzalez this year. He’s certainly a candidate but I don’t know where “huge lead” is coming from.

Also, I think Posey deserves to be in the discussion.

4

mark-CarGo is top 20 in 16 different categories, and is top 10 in 14 of them, top 5 in 9. Votto is top 20 in 9 (all top 10).

5

Huh. Thought I posted this before, but I was curious to hear why you’re taking Trout over Cabrera this year. Last year, there was definitely an interesting old-school/new-school argument to be made.

Also, take Fister off the Cy Young ballot. Substitute with fellow Tiger Max Scherzer. You could make a case for Anibal Sanchez there instead, I guess.

6

LOUNE-I’ve widened how many stats I use, and Trout has big edge in SB and 3B.

7

How far along are we in the MLB season? 30% or so?

8

Well, yeah. Cabrera doesn’t do either of those. You might as well expand it further to “people that are caucasian”, in that case.

9

About.

10

Mike Trout? Are we talking about Memorial Day 2012?

He’s having a good year, but he’s not close to being the AL MVP, is he? The heck with Cabrera, how about Chris Davis? Heck, what about Manny Machado?

In case anyone cares, Fangraphs ranks as the ten best players in each league:

AL:

  1. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit
  2. Evan Longoria, TBR
  3. Chris Davis, Baltimore
  4. Mike Trout, Anaheim/LA
  5. Manny Machado, Baltimore
  6. Josh Donaldson, A’s
  7. Dustin Pedroia, Boston
  8. Jose Bautista, Toronto
  9. Joe Mauer, Twins
  10. Nick Swisher, Cleveland

NL:

  1. Carlos Gomez, Brewers (Yes, really)
  2. Joey Votto, Reds
  3. Jean Segura, Brewers
  4. Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies
  5. Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies
  6. Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona
  7. Buster Posey, Giants
  8. Matt Carpenter, Cards
  9. Justin Upton, Braves
  10. David Wright, Mets

For pitchers:

AL: Sanchez, Buchholz (huh - behind Sanchez? Why?), Scherzer, Felix Hernandez, Holland
NL: Wainwright, Kershaw, Harvey, Zimmermann, Burnett

11

Nick Swisher at #10 demonstrates the silliness of WAR.

12

Davis has had a monster year so far, but that entire lineup has been doing some damage, too.

13

Triples? Seriously? Just use extra-base hits or slugging and be done with it all in one fell swoop.

14

He’s close-ish, i.e. I don’t think anyone would argue he is AL MVP, or even top 5, necessarily. But he isn’t that far off, and he has been coming on.

15

The problem is that defensive value just doesn’t mean much over only 30% of the season, IMO. Swisher is getting a lot of value from his fielding right now, and that’s likely to normalize a bit over the year.

You see something similar in the NL list where Carlos Gomez pops up to #1 in fWAR mainly due to his defensive value. wOBA has the top 5 as: Votto, CarGo, Choo, Goldschmidt, Harper. That feel about right.

Right now I think I’d go with:

AL MVP: Cabrera
NL MVP: Votto
AL Cy Young: Buchholz
NL Cy Young: Wainwright