More Howard vs. Pujols
It seems every day I read an article on Howard vs. Pujols and I get more and more angry at how many truly thought Howard was the right choice for NL MVP always citing his HRs, RBIs, and great September as the reasons to go along with the fact that the Phillies made the playoffs and the Cards did not. Here's my favorite argument though:
"I believe that the MVP must come from a contending team. The player on the contending team was under much greater pressure to produce and that needs to be factored in. The standings need to be factored in unless there is no obvious choice from a contending team or someone was worlds better than everyone else. I didn't feel that was the case this year."
There are so many things wrong with this argument I wont get in to all of them. I'll just hit on the points that bother me the most. Fine, I'll buy the pressure thing, but that does not eliminate Pujols who's team was a wild card contender for 5 1/2 months in the toughest division in the league. Second, there was no clear cut winner on the "Contenders." If you consider the contenders to be the four teams that made it plus the Mets and maybe Astros. You could give it to Berkman, but he did not hit well down the stretch when the pressure was at its highest. You could make a case for several Mets with the best choice being Johan Santana, but they missed the playoffs, and Santana's a pitcher (for whatever reason pitchers seem to not be eligible). I guess you could argue for CC Sabathia or Manny Ramirez, but the whole season counts and neither was close to playing a full season. The best full time players on their teams: Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Braun, and Andre Ethier all deserved votes, but really were not close to the best players at their positions let alone in the league so calling them most valuable is quite dumb. That leaves the Phillies, and trying to pick most valuable Phillie all depends what you value. Let me ask you this though: if you were Phillies GM, and you had to get rid of one of the following players, who would it be? Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, Chase Utley, or Jimmy Rollins? Any GM who knows anything would say either Howard or Lidge because they are the easiest to replace, yet those two got more MVP votes than any pair of teammates. And why? Because of the two stupidest statistics ever created: the save and the RBI.
Howard led the majors in RBIs thanks in no small part to the huge number of RBI opportunities he had. Lidge was a perfect 41 for 41 in saves, which is nice, but how did the team set him up for those 41 opportunities. Here are the facts: take Utley, Hamels, or Rollins off that team and replace their offensive and defensive production with Eric Bruntlett for Rollins/Utley, and Kendrick/Eaton for Hamels. There is absolutely no chance that this team holds off the Mets and Marlins for the playoffs. Utley and Rollins are both great hitters for their position, they are both gold glove caliber fielders, and they are both awesome base runners Bruntlett is the very definition of a replacement player. Hamels was one of the top 5 starters in the league whereas Kendrick and Eaton both had ERAs in the 5s. Now take Howard or Lidge and replace them with Dobbs/Madsen respectively. The dropoff is nowhere near as damaging. Dobbs would not produce as much power as Howard, but he would have more hits, play better defense, and run the bases better leading to essentially the same production. There is also the fact that Dobbs would bat lower in the order, allowing Werth/Burrell to move up killing less rallies than the slumping Howard did in the first 5 months of the season, and protecting Utley from lefties. This has value! Madsen would be a drop off slightly from Lidge, so lets say he blows an extra 4-5 saves. It think in all its a wash and they still win the division or at least come close. Howard was the least valuable of these 5 Phillies, yet he got 12 first place votes??? WTF??? VORP just shows how easily Howard was to replace: his VORP of 36.6 is 2.7 times worse than Pujols! This means Pujols's batting gave his team almost 3 times the victories than Howard's gave his.
Someone asked me this week if I really believed that Pujols was 2.7 times valuable than Howard. "You wouldn't trade 2.7 Howards for 1 Pujols would you?
Well, yes, I would.
First, what the hell would I do with 2.7 Ryan Howards? Assuming you were an AL team, you could DH one, and play one at first. If you were an NL team of course, this becomes even worse as one would have to play left full time and the other could platoon in right. Second, you now have 2.7 lefties who are awful against left handed pitching, make lots of outs, strikeout a ton, and are anchors on the bases. Third, it is going to be a hell of a lot easier for me to find replacements at DH/corner outfield than it would be to replace Pujols's production. Pujols is athletic enough to move around the field, while providing solid defense, Howard is not. If anything VORP understates their massive difference as it does not include defense, base running, or situational hitting all of which are areas where Pujols blows Howard away.
Still some people only understand counting stats, so here are some for you to chew on:
Outs
Howard: 475
Pujols: 364
Times on base:
Howard: 237
Pujols: 296
Total Bases:
Howard: 331
Pujols: 342
Runs Created
Howard: 113
Pujols: 160
Only TB is close as that is greatly inflated by Howard's home park and playing time. They do not outweigh the massive amount of outs Howard made to get their killing rallies and costing his team games in the process. Utley also crushes Howard in all of these except TB, where he is only 6 (six!) behind. Utley is really an amazing case as he has been statistically his team's MVP for each of the past two seasons and has not finished in to top 3 Phillies in the voting.
"I believe that the MVP must come from a contending team. The player on the contending team was under much greater pressure to produce and that needs to be factored in. The standings need to be factored in unless there is no obvious choice from a contending team or someone was worlds better than everyone else. I didn't feel that was the case this year."
There are so many things wrong with this argument I wont get in to all of them. I'll just hit on the points that bother me the most. Fine, I'll buy the pressure thing, but that does not eliminate Pujols who's team was a wild card contender for 5 1/2 months in the toughest division in the league. Second, there was no clear cut winner on the "Contenders." If you consider the contenders to be the four teams that made it plus the Mets and maybe Astros. You could give it to Berkman, but he did not hit well down the stretch when the pressure was at its highest. You could make a case for several Mets with the best choice being Johan Santana, but they missed the playoffs, and Santana's a pitcher (for whatever reason pitchers seem to not be eligible). I guess you could argue for CC Sabathia or Manny Ramirez, but the whole season counts and neither was close to playing a full season. The best full time players on their teams: Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Braun, and Andre Ethier all deserved votes, but really were not close to the best players at their positions let alone in the league so calling them most valuable is quite dumb. That leaves the Phillies, and trying to pick most valuable Phillie all depends what you value. Let me ask you this though: if you were Phillies GM, and you had to get rid of one of the following players, who would it be? Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Brad Lidge, Chase Utley, or Jimmy Rollins? Any GM who knows anything would say either Howard or Lidge because they are the easiest to replace, yet those two got more MVP votes than any pair of teammates. And why? Because of the two stupidest statistics ever created: the save and the RBI.
Howard led the majors in RBIs thanks in no small part to the huge number of RBI opportunities he had. Lidge was a perfect 41 for 41 in saves, which is nice, but how did the team set him up for those 41 opportunities. Here are the facts: take Utley, Hamels, or Rollins off that team and replace their offensive and defensive production with Eric Bruntlett for Rollins/Utley, and Kendrick/Eaton for Hamels. There is absolutely no chance that this team holds off the Mets and Marlins for the playoffs. Utley and Rollins are both great hitters for their position, they are both gold glove caliber fielders, and they are both awesome base runners Bruntlett is the very definition of a replacement player. Hamels was one of the top 5 starters in the league whereas Kendrick and Eaton both had ERAs in the 5s. Now take Howard or Lidge and replace them with Dobbs/Madsen respectively. The dropoff is nowhere near as damaging. Dobbs would not produce as much power as Howard, but he would have more hits, play better defense, and run the bases better leading to essentially the same production. There is also the fact that Dobbs would bat lower in the order, allowing Werth/Burrell to move up killing less rallies than the slumping Howard did in the first 5 months of the season, and protecting Utley from lefties. This has value! Madsen would be a drop off slightly from Lidge, so lets say he blows an extra 4-5 saves. It think in all its a wash and they still win the division or at least come close. Howard was the least valuable of these 5 Phillies, yet he got 12 first place votes??? WTF??? VORP just shows how easily Howard was to replace: his VORP of 36.6 is 2.7 times worse than Pujols! This means Pujols's batting gave his team almost 3 times the victories than Howard's gave his.
Someone asked me this week if I really believed that Pujols was 2.7 times valuable than Howard. "You wouldn't trade 2.7 Howards for 1 Pujols would you?
Well, yes, I would.
First, what the hell would I do with 2.7 Ryan Howards? Assuming you were an AL team, you could DH one, and play one at first. If you were an NL team of course, this becomes even worse as one would have to play left full time and the other could platoon in right. Second, you now have 2.7 lefties who are awful against left handed pitching, make lots of outs, strikeout a ton, and are anchors on the bases. Third, it is going to be a hell of a lot easier for me to find replacements at DH/corner outfield than it would be to replace Pujols's production. Pujols is athletic enough to move around the field, while providing solid defense, Howard is not. If anything VORP understates their massive difference as it does not include defense, base running, or situational hitting all of which are areas where Pujols blows Howard away.
Still some people only understand counting stats, so here are some for you to chew on:
Outs
Howard: 475
Pujols: 364
Times on base:
Howard: 237
Pujols: 296
Total Bases:
Howard: 331
Pujols: 342
Runs Created
Howard: 113
Pujols: 160
Only TB is close as that is greatly inflated by Howard's home park and playing time. They do not outweigh the massive amount of outs Howard made to get their killing rallies and costing his team games in the process. Utley also crushes Howard in all of these except TB, where he is only 6 (six!) behind. Utley is really an amazing case as he has been statistically his team's MVP for each of the past two seasons and has not finished in to top 3 Phillies in the voting.
posted by Andrew Manning at
3:03 PM
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