Checking In on the MVP Races
June 12, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under News
Sure, it’s early. But is it really? I mean, don’t we pretty much start speculating on who will win the MVP as soon as the season begins?
Heck, some of us do it even sooner than that.
Jacob at Vegas Watch has devised a quick-and-dirty system for identifying the top position players in each league using adjusted WPA and UZR. I’m still digesting this, but it’s a fascinating technique with pretty reasonable-looking results: AL | NL.
I’m particularly interested to see so many of the young hitters I talked about at The Hardball Times before the season show up on the NL list. (Speaking of which, I really need to revisit that list.) As someone who is fortunate enough to see Adrian Gonzalez on a daily basis, I’m also pleased to see him fare so well according to Jacob’s system. First basemen rarely get much love for their glove, but Gonzalez is a wizard over there.
On another note, it might be instructive to apply some of these techniques to past seasons and see what, if any, predictive value they might have in finding actual MVPs. Then again, “boatloads of RBI on a winning team” seems to be working fairly well in that capacity.
If you go by stats Matt Holliday wins hands down. He is by far the most Valuable player to the Rockies Offense and pure energy. A lot of argument goes into the fact he plays at Coors Field and if you look at his numbers he players just as good if not better at opposing fields. Also Coors Field with their deeper fences has curved the offensive production.
J-Roll has put up historical numbers from the lead off spot. He also should win the Gold Glove. Holliday is not a leader the way that Jimmy Rollins is. Nor is he the defensive player that Rollins is. The MVP is the single player that helps their own team to win and to hold that team together. J-Roll backs up what he says. Have you guys heard of Super Bowl III? Great players back it up on the field. No player in baseball has held a team together like Jimmy has this year.
So Much For Derrick. Matt Holliday and the boys served Jimmy Rollins head on Crow sandwich in NL playoffs. Hope you liked the games Derrick.
Go Rocks 08……………..