AL MVP Ballot Oddities

Today, the BBWAA announced that Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer was voted American League MVP. While his victory was unsurprising, he just posted a .438 wOBA as an above-average defensive catcher and he received 27 of 28 first-place votes, there were numerous other surprises to keep us entertained. Let's dig into the ones I saw:

Bobby Abreu: 2 fifth-place votes, 9 votes overall, 23 points

Listen, I get that Abreu's patient approach supposedly transformed the Angels' slap-happy, energetic offense into a pitch-taking, on-base machine, but how is a below-average defensive right fielder with a .365 wOBA (which takes SB/CS into account) one of the five most valuable players in the league?

Carl Crawford, who posted an identical wOBA while playing elite defense and stealing 60 bases, didn't even receive ONE vote on a single ballot, but Abreu gets votes on nine different ballots? Yeah, Abreu gets bonus points for being on a playoff team and the whole "nice story" thing, but how is Abreu remotely as valuable as Crawford?

The guy with the 13th-best wOBA among everyday AL outfielders while posting a -11.0 UZR was really an MVP candidate?

Aaron Hill: 1 fourth-place vote, 8 votes overall, 23 points

Just like with Abreu, I get how a well-regarded defensive second baseman who hits .286 with 36 home runs, 37 doubles and 108 RBI might garner some MVP votes. But at the same time, how do you ignore the numerous flaws in his candidacy?

Hill's 5.8% walk rate was the worst of his career and led to a very mediocre .330 OBP, which combined with his lack of value in terms of stolen bases, adds up to a .357 wOBA. While that's certainly an impressive mark, it's still only fifth among everyday AL second baseman, behind Ben Zobrist, Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler and Robinson Cano.

And while UZR certainly has its flaws, especially in a sample size of only 156 games, it's certainly worth acknowledging his -2.3 UZR from this season, and the possibility that his defense won't quite return to the level that it was at before the major injuries of last season.

Hill is a great player, but unless you're only using traditional manners of evaluation (BA, HR, RBI, Runs, etc.), he just hasn't been one of the 10 most valuable players in the AL.

Placido Polanco: 1 ninth-place vote

Essentially every player that got an MVP vote is a great player, it's just that some great players had more valuable seasons than others, obviously. With Placido Polanco, I just don't get what's going on.

How does a second baseman with a .285/.331/.396 line garner even one MVP vote? Even if he's pretty good defensively, Polanco is not much more than a solid everyday player, and it's not even like his team made the playoffs this season.

I would just really love to know the explanation behind that one, because I'm sure that it must be exceptionally warped.

And finally: Where's the lack of love for Zack Greinke?

I know, I know, pitchers generally aren't considered in MVP voting, even though they're allowed to be, and how could Greinke be so valuable if the Royals were so awful?

Well, according to WAR, Greinke was easily the most valuable player IN THE GAME, his 9.4 WAR, Rays 2B Ben Zobrist finished second with a 8.6 WAR and Albert Pujols was third with an 8.4 WAR. Mauer certainly would have finished with a better mark than his 8.2 WAR if UZR actually rated defense for catchers, because Mauer is regarded as above-average and UZR, and WAR as a function of that, assumes that all catchers are league average defensively.

I know that WAR has numerous flaws, but wouldn't it seem that the guy that posted the highest WAR in baseball in 2009 would deserve more than one fifth-place vote, one sixth-place vote, one ninth-place vote and one tenth-place vote?

Luckily, the voters got the biggest part of the voting process right, and that was that they recognized that Joe Mauer was the most valuable player in the AL.

Angels Not Interested in Matt Holliday

After numerous writers and bloggers speculated that Matt Holliday could be a good fit with the Los Angeles Angels, Bill Shaikin of the LA Times reported that Angels owner Arte Moreno said that the organization isn't interested in pursuing the veteran outfielder.

As far as I can tell, Moreno's comment makes a lot more sense than those of the writers and bloggers of the baseball world. Certainly, the Angels could use a cornerstone position player to replace Vladimir Guerrero, but it's pretty questionable if Holliday is capable of being that kind of player in the AL.

After struggling in his tenure with the Oakland Athletics in the first half of 2009, many speculated that the issues were because of the change in ballpark, as Coors Field is a hitter's park and the Coliseum in Oakland is a well-known pitcher's park. But this was hardly reflected in what Holliday did in Oakland:

Home: .286/.383/.494
Road: .287/.373/.416

Rather than struggling in Oakland, he was actually much more productive at home, and his biggest issue was a lack of power production away from home. As far as I can tell, the problem wasn't the change in ballpark, but rather the change in leagues. Obviously, it's established that the AL is more competitive than the NL, but the impact that the change in leagues had in Holliday was fairly substantial.

Routinely one of the best fastball hitters in the NL, when he moved to the AL, his numbers against fastballs plummeted. After posting wFB/C (the number of runs above or below average that a player offers against a given pitch, per 100 pitches) marks of 1.17, 1.37 and 2.00 in 2006-2008, the mark dropped down to 0.18 with Oakland, before skyrocketing back up to 2.45 in his time in St. Louis.

I know that the sample size is small, only 400 plate appearances, but given how radically different Holliday's production was in Oakland compared to what he did in Colorado and St. Louis, it seems that spending huge money on this guy to expect him to thrive in the AL West would be misguided. I'm just not really sure if Holliday is capable of being an impact hitter worth giving $15M+ per season in the American League, and if he's looking for at least five years on a deal, then to me that just seems like a risk not worth making.