Pitchers as MVPs?

by frisbeepilot on Aug 18, 2011 4:48 PM EDT

In today's News, Tony Paul — a BBWAA writer — made the case for Justin Verlander to be voted the AL MVP this year. He also outlined the BBWAA's apparent distaste, in recent years, for pitchers (especially starters) to be voted MVP.

"The Cy Young is for pitchers and the MVP is for position players," goes the conventional wisdom. "Pitchers only pitch once every five days, but position-players are out there every game." But, consider...

Any one hitter is one-ninth of a batting order (11%).
Any starting pitcher is one-fifth of a rotation these days (20%).

Now, I realize there are bullpens, DHs, pinch-hitters, days off, injuries, and a host of other statistical categories I've ignored here (pitchers hitting in interleague games, position-players taking the mound, suspensions for throwing at hitters' heads, etc.). I've also completely ignored fielding, and I've assumed that the BBWAA is a fair assessor of talent; these might be big stretches. This is meant to be a crude, quick-and-dirty assessment, which it is.

I took the last three years' worth of MVP and Cy Young voting data, and considered the top five in each category in each year. (No pitcher, starter or reliever, was in the top-5 in the MVP voting from 2008 onward.) Then, I calculated what percentage of their team's plate appearances (for the MVP) or innings pitched (for the Cy) was attributable to each. All the stats are from baseball-reference, because they're fantastic.

For the MVP candidates:

2010 MVP

Name	PA	Team PA	% of Team PA
Hamilton, TEX	571	6298	9.07%
Cabrera, DET	648	6312	10.27%
Cano, NYY	696	6379	10.91%
Bautista, TOR	683	6071	11.25%
Konerko, CHW	631	6118	10.31%
		Avg	10.36%

2009 MVP

Name	PA	Team PA	% of Team PA
Mauer, MIN	606	6346	9.55%
Teixeira, NYY	609	6447	9.45%
Jeter, NYY	716	6447	11.11%
Cabrera, DET	685	6233	10.99%
Morales, LAA	622	6305	9.87%
		Avg	10.19%

2008 MVP

Name	PA	Team PA	% of Team PA
Pedroia, BOS	726	6402	11.34%
Morneau, MIN	712	6330	11.25%
Youkilis, BOS	621	6402	9.70%
Mauer, MIN	633	6330	10.00%
Quentin, CHW	569	6231	9.13%
		Avg	10.28%

Now for the Cy Young candidates:

2010 Cy Young

Name	IP	Team IP	% of Team IP
Hernandez, SEA	249.7	1438	17.36%
Price, TBR	208.7	1453.7	14.36%
Sabathia, NYY	237.7	1442.3	16.48%
Lester, BOS	208	1456.7	14.28%
Weaver, LAA	224.3	1449.3	15.48%
		Avg	15.59%

2009 Cy Young

Name	IP	Team IP	% of Team IP
Greinke, KCR	229.3	1426	16.08%
Hernandez, SEA	238.7	1452.7	16.43%
Verlander, DET	240	1447	16.59%
Sabathia, NYY	230	1450	15.86%
Halladay, TOR	239	1451	16.47%
		Avg	16.29%

2008 Cy Young (all pitchers)

Name	IP	Team IP	% of Team IP
Lee, CLE	223.3	1437	15.54%
Halladay, TOR	246	1446.7	17.00%
Rodriguez, LAA	68.3	1451.3	4.71%
Matsuzaka, BOS	167.7	1446.3	11.60%
Rivera, NYY	70.7	1441.7	4.90%
		Avg	10.75%

2008 Cy Young (just the starters)

Name	IP	Team IP	% of Team IP
Lee, CLE	223.3	1437	15.54%
Halladay, TOR	246	1446.7	17.00%
Matsuzaka, BOS	167.7	1446.3	11.60%
Mussina, NYY	200.3	1441.7	13.89%
Santana, LAA	219	1451.3	15.09%
		Avg	14.62%

I did 2008 twice because I didn't really feel like getting into the whole "is a closer worth more than a starter" sort of argument, talking about leverage factors, all that jazz... someone else can, if they like. (For this analysis, I'll ignore the relievers; but, for the record, I think they can be MVP candidates, too.) The point is that the numbers turned out a bit surprising, which is why I'm doing all this.

Average % of a team's plate appearances by top-5 MVP vote-getters:	10.28%
Average % of a team's innings pitched by top-5 Cy Young vote-getters:	15.50%

Is an inning pitched equivalent to a plate appearance? How important is a "stopper" in a rotation? Do voters over-value RBI and wins in these awards? I'm not sure. The moral of the story is that the whole "every fifth day" argument is bunk. Dear BBWAA voters, don't be afraid to vote for a pitcher as an MVP.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Bless You Boys writing staff.

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Comments

This reframes the argument in a way hadn't thought about.

Thanks for doing the work.

You know I'm right about this.

by HighOPS on Aug 19, 2011 7:52 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

Neat article...good stats

I don’t believe and don’t feel that Verlander will/should win the MVP. That would rob the best position player of any honor. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think that Justin Verlander is the most valuable player, because I strongly feel that he is. The guy has just about guaranteed our team 20% of our wins. And in a weak division, we only need the other 4 guys to pitch at a 35% rate combined to get to .550. (We’ve had trouble doing that, by the way).

Anyhow, I think it would be great to see an award just for hitters. That way, Verlander could win the Cy, the best hitter could win the position player award, and the better of the two could win the MVP.

The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love. ~Bryant Gumbel, 1981

by momotigers on Aug 19, 2011 9:29 AM EDT reply actions

Also, there are three plate appearances per inning

A pitcher that averages 4.00 plate appearances (that’s a 1.00 WHIP) per inning, say 240 innings in a season, will have 960 plate appearances logged in a season.

I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!

by Tigerdog1 on Aug 19, 2011 12:29 PM EDT reply actions