|
From the Archives
|
Team by Team MVPs of 2000September 23, 2000 As noted in an earlier Baseball Crank column, there isn't widespread agreemeent about the meaning of the MVP award, which is one reason it's so much fun to argue about. While there perhaps isn't universal agreement about this point, I think it's at least common sense that to win a league MVP award, you'd have to be considered the most valuable player on your team. By way of stoking the hot stove flames a bit early, I'm going to do a team-by-team run down of the Most Valuable Players on each team. My biases are to give some credit for defense but not to thus disqualify a DH (or a pitcher), to give credit to a player's importance to winning games for his team (no matter how bad his team is), and to weight OPS more than most other offensive stats (but not slavishly). One reason I like to do this around now is the final statistics can be deceptive out of context. The final winners of statistical categorical leaders tend to get more MVP votes, but the final few weeks' play and ups and downs of counting stats aren't as meaningful as the players' total contributions across the season. I thus dislike looking at "league champions" in categories, per se, and making selections prior to the end of the season helps avoid this bias. There's the greater historical context, too. You look at a player's line twenty years from now, you have no idea how good a hot half season was or how well the Kansas City Royals or Arizona Diamondbacks were doing that year. The "real" winner of the MVP will get his name in the record books, but a lot of great performances can be forgotten. So clip and save this team by team summary, whether or not you agree with the choices - I've included some runners-up for reference In any event, consider these the nominations for the league MVP, which we'll cover in a later column. AL East New York - Derek Jeter League-leading OPS, great defense at a key position with a middlin' pitcher staff that depends on sure-handed put-outs, and fabulous run-scoring instincts make Jeter the most valuable member of the famous Yankee ensemble. Runners-up: Bernie Williams. You need only look at the Yankees's struggles when he was out of the line-up to see how important he was to the 2000 team. Late season additions Dave Justice and Glenallen Hill will look one-dimensional in the Baseball Encyclopedia years from now, but both players carried the Yankee offense for key portions of the season. Boston - Pedro Martinez I'll skip over his impressive list of achievements which make him the best pitcher, by far, than any other pitcher this year, and go right to the debate about the ability of a pitcher to be an MVP. Even if you just count pitching every five days, a dominant starter like Pedro is worth the equivalent of a 150-RBI or 150-Run man -- just look at the number of outs the pitcher creates, and think of it as the inverse of OPS. But there's also a real and unmeasurable effect of Pedro on Boston's managing to win 50 or more times when he wasn't pitching, through saving the bullpen and those ineffable confidence boosts. It's hard to otherwise explain how the Red Sox were a winning team in 2000. Runner-up: Carl Everett supplied the key in the middle of the lineup that's been missing from this team, post-Mo, and more than carried the team, provided all the offense in quite a number of games for this low-ERA, low-scoring team. Toronto - Carlo Delgado The Triple Crown stats are overrated, but it's hard to argue with an 1.100 OPS and the penumbra of run-scoring around Delgado's spot in the order. Runner-up: Tony Batista. Provided a 1.000+ OPS and excellent defense at third. Future generations, take note of Dan Plesac's numbers for the 2000 Diamondbacks: 3-0, 3.62 in just over 30 IP. Baltimore - Mike Mussina A sad thing that the team MVP didn't win ten games and had an ERA hovering around 4.00 most of the year. But Mussina put up these numbers despite atrocious defense, relief pitching, and run support -- was his usual excellent self -- and provided Baltimore with its only really good chance of winning every fifth day. Runners-up: I'll mention Mike Bordick, who through an overachieving pair of years at the plate, managed to bring five prospects and players to the Orioles from the Mets, so was valuable as an exchange; and Mike Kinkade, who played most of the year with the AA Binghamton Mets and finished the year on the US Olympic team playing catcher and first base, who was the only Oriole thus part of two pretty good teams. They were very sad in Binghamton to see him traded away. Tampa Bay - Gerald Williams Gerald earned a few black marks in my gradebook for his part in the Pedro Martinez beanball fiasco, but I'm assured by people who know him personally he's really a terrific guy, so I will cut him some slack. On a poorly-assembled and indifferent offensive team, Williams managed an 80-run, 80-RBI season, played above average centerfield, and served as a sparkplug for the occasional piston firing in the Devil Ray offense. Runner-up: Fred McGriff. McGriff put together another relatively meaningless 100-RBI season and slugged his 400th dinger, thus assuring his name will plague discussions of Hall of Fame voting when he retires, but he did lead the Rays with an OPS better than .800. AL Central Chicago - Frank Thomas There are those who discount Thomas because he's "only" a DH, but sometimes a player helps his team out by knowing when not to insist on playing defense. I'd argue a poor-fielding first baseman who has an OPS of 1.100, including an OBP of near .450, is less valuable to his team than a DH who does no damage on defense. Thomas is back at his career-high levels, even adjusting a bit for the offensive inflation in recent years, and arguably his success was the difference between the blossoming youngsters for Chicago putting together those incredible run-scoring sequences and having more than a few rallies cut short. Runner-up: Magglio Ordoñez. Mags had an OBP over .400, slugged nearly .600, and played an above-average right field. I don't know whether to believe in protection in the lineup or not, but certainly he and Thomas back to back in the lineup provided no respite for opposing pitchers, and that's something over a long season. Cleveland - Manny Ramirez Manny's lines in the books won't look so impressive, since he missed a chunk of the season and his counting stats are thus lower than most other sluggers. But Ramirez was absolutely the best slugger in the league when he played, and the Indians struggled mightily with him out of the lineup. His return and the decision to sign him allowed the Indians to trade David Justice and Richie Sexson (ignoring the returns on those deals, it was a sign of the stock the Indians put on Ramirez as a backbone) and take a flexible "compete now, compete later" approach to an otherwise aging ballclub. Runner-up: Travis Fryman. Quietly having an awesome year, with a .404 OBP and .532 Slugging percentage, while making only two errors all year at third. In a year where the Indians' vaunted offensive production took a dip down due to age and injury, Fryman was second in value among AL third baseman only to Tony Batista. Detroit - Bobby Higginson Higginson, celebrated hot-head perennially in management doghouse, had a bit of a breakout this year, with an OBP around .380 and slugging in the mid-.500s, scoring over a hundred runs for a somewhat anemic Tiger team struggling to adjust to its new pitching-and-defense-oriented ballpark. At the same time, he had 15 outfield assists and managed on occasion to channel the hot-headedness into team elan. Runner-up: Todd Jones. After a slow start, thanks to lack of opportunities, Jones ended up leading the league in saves for a .500-ish ballclub. Saves themselves are a warped stat, but to put it in perspective, Jones didn't have a bunch of cheapo save opportunities like some closers: he prevented 90% of his two dozen inherited runners from scoring, and by closing the door, kept Detroit's chances to win the few games they could lead late much better than average. Kansas City - Johnny Damon Damon lead the league in steals, an overrated category to be sure, and had over 200 hits while leading the league in runs scored. For a club that has struggled scoring runs in recent years, this is important. He also slugged a reasonable .500, with triples and doubles a bigger part his repertoire than the more noticeable homer. Runner-up: Mike Sweeney, with an OPS around .950 most of the season, and the big run producer of the lineup. I'd like to know how many times Sweeny drove in Damon this year. Minnesota - Cristian Guzman A .750 OPS and over 20 errors don't seem like qualifications for team MVP, but Guzman's defense was better than the numbers indicate and he provided an overall run-scoring threat in the Twin lineup that's been missing. His 20+ SB added a little excitment for the Twin Cities fans, something sadly missing from recent teams. More to the point, he provided a bit of hope for the second-division former Washington Senators, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the Twins managed an almost respectable season thanks to a decent middle-of-the-year run against some of the better teams in the league. Nevermind the Twins traded the far more-talented Todd Walker away from the middle infield because he and Tom Kelly couldn't get along; Guzman was, if not a diamond, a reasonably-sized chunk of cubic zirconium in the rough of the Metrodome. Runners-up: Ron Coomer and Jacque Jones, who had the team's only reasonable OPS. Jones in particular blossomed as the season went on and played excellent defense, despite occasional mental lapses. AL West Seattle - Alex Rodriguez Another entry in the pages of the journal "Dunh!". A-Rod played with stellar range in the middle of the infield and, by the way, had an OPS around 1.050, scoring over a hundred and getting over a hundred of those overrated RBI in an alleged "pitcher's" park. Why he hasn't been MVP at least three times already is beyond me -- except less-talented players end up with more RBI thanks to their lineups. For this reason, A-Rod may decide his best bet may yet be to leave Seattle; more's the pity. Runner-up: Edgar Martinez. OK, so he's "just" a DH -- just a DH who also had an OPS close to 1.050, and had career highs in HR and RBI at the age of 38. Honorable mention goes to cast-offs Rickey Henderson and Mike Cameron. The former was his usual OBP, run-scoring monster self after being tossed aside by the Mets, who couldn't do better than Benny Agbayani to replace him, and the latter lived past the albatross of being labeled as Junior's replacement and played outstanding defense and hit better than he has at any stop in his up and down career. Oakland - Jason Giambi While there are few living persons who could verify this for me, for some reason Giambi looks to me like a latter-day Hack Wilson: a guy who physically doesn't match the astounding impact he has on the ball. Of course, Giambi isn't an alcoholic and he's got a good four inches on Wilson, so I think he'll probably be around longer. A 1.070 OPS is why. Runner-up: Miguel Tejada. While there are lots of also-ran candidates in Oakland's talented offense, I pick Tejada for his contribution at shortstop (again, better than 20+ errors might indicate), and his .800+ OPS out of the middle infield, which provides a coup de grace to many an opposing pitcher who's waded through Giambi, Grieve, Long, Stairs, and Chavez. He'd be the best-hitting Devil Ray were he on that beknighted team, for comparison, by the way. Anaheim - Darrin Erstad On a team full of underachievers in recent years, Erstad (unlike Jim Edmonds) managed to make his breakthrough without leaving town. The man has an ungodly number of hits, over 230, and will be a 100 run, 100 RBI man batting out of the leadoff position. While this doesn't say much about Mike Sciosia's ability to maximize his lineup (see also the 1997 Red Sox, who had Nomar Garciaparra leading off all year), it does underscore exactly how good Erstad has been. Runner-up: Mo Vaughn. Rebounding from an ankle injury, Mo's back around his usual career levels in the counting stats, but his OPS is only around .900, and that's not quite as good as it appears to be given the offense in 2000. Still, his return was undoubtedly a major reason why the Angels hung around the races late this year after departing from contention in April in 1999. Texas - Rafael Palmeiro We'll see if Rafael wins a Gold Glove this year, having played 90 games at first, after winning it with only 29 games at that position in 1999. But his offense was his usual quiet excellent production of .950, this without the "protection" of Juan Gonzalez and Pudge in the lineup. That's good. Runner-up: Ivan Rodriguez. He missed most of the year; his absence from the lineup caused the Rangers to give up on the year, with good reason. For a last-place team, I think it's reasonable to count up how a player's absence from the lineup indicates exactly how important he is to the team. NL East Atlanta - Andruw Jones Andruw had yet another break-through year, thanks to increased selectiveness at the plate, being dropped from #7 to #2 in the lineup, and his large pool of natural talent. It'll be really scary when he hits that "magic age" of 27 -- four years from now. His famous defense, if anything, is still underrated -- few players in the history of the game have had his range, and that's made an aging and occasionally struggling pitching staff have the confidence to let the ball be put in play. Runner-up: Chipper Jones. Last year's official NL MVP had a similar OPS to Andruw, in the .950 range, but wasn't quite as good a baserunner, and had 20 errors at third, which is not good, at least two of which cost his team games. So Andruw gets the slight nod. New York - Mike Piazza Another example of the game, "Why hasn't this guy won an MVP before?" Barring none, Piazza has been the most consistent offensive performer at a high level over the past six years, and that's a fabulous .1070+ OPS. He may score 90 runs playing only six days a week. His ability to keep runners on base is still shaky, but he seems to have had a steadying effect on the New York pitching staff, and should get positive credit for playing at least an average overall defense. Runners-up: Armando Benitez and Edgardo Alfonzo. The capstone to the Mets' bullpen and their only reliable producer other than Piazza, respectively. Alfonzo has also made Todd Zeile look much, much better in the field than he actually is by covering extra field Olerud used to cover on the right side. Florida - Ryan Dempster Hidden in the mists of South Florida and Elian Gonzalez coverage, Dempster has been as dominating as any young pitcher in the last decade. The ERA in the mid-3.00s may not seem impressive, but he's had some indifferent defensive support and spotty relief help. In the meantime, he managed nearly a K per IP, and with a dozen wins, is the closest thing the emerging Marlins pitching staff had to a stopper. Runner-up: Luis Castillo. An .850ish OPS, despite not slugging worth a lick, and his league-leading steal capability was literally at the top of the Marlins' off and on run-scoring capacities. I'd normally consider Antonio Alfonseca, who lead the league in saves, but he inherited only five runners all year, which makes for a ton of easy saves. Montreal - Vlad Guerrero Vlad lives at home with his mother and bats 1.050 and is among the league leaders across the board in every major stat. You'd never know it given the coverage he gets in the media blackout that is Quebec baseball 2000, but I expect without Vlad under contract, the team would lose half of what value it still has left. That's literally a most-valuable player. Runner-up: Jose Vidro. Hard to believe this guy was fighting Mickey Morandini for a job in March. He turned in an excellent defensive season, and had a .950+ OPS, closing in on 100 runs and 100 RBI having hit largely out of the #2 slot all year. He also played out the last three weeks of a completely meaningless season with a partial ligament tear; that's some kind of a gamer. Honorable mention to Steve Kline, who with an ERA right around 2.00 most of the year and more than 80IP, was both literally and figuratively the savior of the Expos' pitching staff. Philadelphia - Bob Abreu .950+ OPS, speed and power, and a dozen outfield assists out of right field - god knows where the Phillies would've been without him. Runner-up: Robert Person. Another obscure young starter, but his ERA has been in the low 3.00's all year despite a below-average defense up the middle and a bad home field. His numbers don't show up well because of missed time in the middle of the season and poor run support, but healthy he was as dominating as any non-Randy-Johnson pitcher in the NL. |
 |
NL Central St. Louis - Jim Edmonds I think he's overrated at Centerfield -- the circus catches are due to a lack of proper anticipation of the play (contrast to Andruw Jones), but he's still quite good. His OPS has been over 1.000, and he reached glamor milestones in R, RBI, and HR in a lineup otherwise plagued by injury at almost every position this year. Hard to believe it's Jim Edmonds who went without injury, but so it goes, and that almost by definition made him the MVP of a division winner. Cincinnati - Ken Griffey He makes an interesting contrast to Edmonds, with an OPS in the .950s. His defense was also overrated and his range has been tailing off in recent years, but he's still pretty to watch. The low average wasn't really a problem, so much as his lack of doubles -- perhaps swinging for the fence a bit too much, or maybe an effect of moving to Cinergy Field. But it's still an impressive year. Runner-up: Pokey Reese. As much as it pains me to laud a player with an OBP barely above .300, Pokey's slugging made up for that a bit, although his OPS was still below .700. But he played an outstanding second base, and perhaps held the lineup together for more of the year than anybody other than Junior. Houston - Jeff Bagwell So Houston had an awful year. Bagwell hit his usual boring 1.050, and remained healthy. Runners-up: Moises Alou and Richard Hidalgo, with OPS of around 1.050 and .950 respectively. Hidalgo had a great second half and established his level as around the Alou-Bagwell territory, and he's still got legs, which are failing Alou and Bagwell. I'm going to give an honorable mention to Jose Lima for being so awful, if he wakes up management to the fact pitching and defense are important in any park. Milwaukee - Jeff D'Amico Our next entry in the obscure but wonderful young pitchers. D'Amico barely qualified for the ERA title after missing two months, and barely edged out Randy Johnson. However, I only give him partial credit for the achievement, given that the extra 50 IP he missed would probably have been more tired and thus less effective than his low- 2.00 ERA. But he also had a lousy bullpen behind him and a below average defense other than Geoff Jenkins and Henry Blanco, so we'll cut him some slack. He could be scary-good for the next ten years. Runners-up: Geoff Jenkins and Richie Sexson. Jenkins missed a month due to injury, but had an OPS of over .900 in his second semi-full year in the majors, with a dozen outfield assists from left. Sexson was traded from Cleveland in mid-season but hit 1.050 in his two and a half months, making the Brewers actually semi-respectable in the second half. Pittsburgh - Brian Giles Yet another great player (1.050 OPS) stuck on a minor-league team. The Pirates had planned on building around him; now they may be forced to use him as the key in a trade for yet another rebuild sequence. Runner-up: Jason Kendall, he of the celebrated comeback from a gross ankle injury, who hits .900 despite limited power, thanks to a great batting eye. His game-calling is indifferent, but you can mostly fault the weak major league coaching staff and a bunch of stiffs on the mound for that. He's spry and athletic behind the plate, and of course unusually steals twenty and more every year, which is something. One of the most fun players to watch in the league. Chicago - Sammy Sosa I give Sammy the nod extremely reluctantly, but you can't ingore a 1.050 OPS on a team where no one else even broached .850. But his defense was atrocious. He not only had only two assists all year, he made a number of well-publicized game-costing errors and even more gaffes that don't show up in the box scores but cost his team a lot of runs. It's puzzling; Sammy was once an outstanding outfielder, but at this point he should really be moved to left field where he'll do far less damage at Wrigley. Runner-up: Jon Lieber. The victim of Sammy's misplays on many occasions this year, Lieber's ERA would've been in the mid-3.50s had he not been extended into far too many games by a weak pen and that weak defense. As it was, he lead the league in IP with over 220 innings and had a Maddux-like walk rate, and is the only reason the Cubs didn't fall to a 1962-Mets-like level. NL West San Francisco - Jeff Kent The Giants were a great ensemble cast this year, most especially on offense. While Kent's OPS of 1.050ish is only third-best on the team, he carried the team early when the offense was struggling, and was more personally instrumental in winning games to keep the Giants in touch prior to their second-half explosion. Kent is a somewhat lumpish second-baseman, but like Cal Ripken, has actually extended his range in his 30s by applying experience and superior positioning. Runners-up: Barry Bonds and Ellis Burks. Bonds of course is having an historic year at the plate, with an OPS over 1.100 and a slugging percentage close on .700, which ranks it among the top seasons all-time. We do discount this somewhat due to the offensive explosion, and sad as I am to say it, Bonds' decreased range and armstrength have reduced him to a below-average left-fielder. Still, it's extremely hard to not call Bonds the league MVP, but the reality is Kent's career year out of the #4 slot probably helped Bonds some. Burks also hit 1.050, and despite his creaky knees played gold-glove caliber right field -- but played in just over 100 games to keep him mobile, which limits his overall value to the team just a bit. Arizona - Randy Johnson I again find it improbable that there's any discussion of NL Cy Young other than Johnson. Finishing second to D'Amico in ERA and failing to reach 20 wins, along with the tendencies of the writers to loathe repeat winners, may deprive him of the honor, but let's review the facts. He's got over 200 IP at a for-2000-microscopic ERA, three-quarters of a run better than Greg Maddux'. He's survived poor run support, slow defense, and erratic relief help, yet still nearly won twenty games. Sure, strikeouts are overrated, but they're a measure of dominating a batter by keeping the ball out of play, and the high K total is mirrored by microscopic opponents' on-base percentage. Without Johnson, the Diamondbacks are just as bad as the Red Sox without Pedro, maybe even worse. Runner-up: Luis Gonzalez. The only one of the over-30, overachieving in 1999 offensive squad to be a consistent performer in 2000, at an OPS in the .950 range. Los Angeles - Gary Sheffield So the Giants are winning the division, but Sheffield is having the best offensive year in baseball, with an OPS approach 1.150! Sheffield's superb batting eye was on this year, and his only significant loss of playing time was due to the flu in late August. Unfortunately this fine year is going to be lost amidst the disappointing or injury-marred seasons of Green, Karros, Hundley, and Beltre, and the well-below average on-base percentage at the top of the lineup, which reduced some of Gary's still-gaudy glamor numbers. Runners-up: Kevin Brown and Chan-Ho Park. Brown had a great season, with an ERA close to Randy Johnson's, and one in which he gave up almost exactly one baserunner per IP. But bullpen difficulties, bottom-of-the-league defense, and some strange early hooks from Davey Johnson conspired to suppress Brown's win total. Park, after a shaky start, pitched sub-3.00 after mid-May, and was nearly as good as Brown. The Dodgers would've been bottom of the division material without either one of them. Colorado - Todd Helton Helton flirted with a staggering 1.200 OPS most of the year, although applying the proper Coors discount, this is "only" about 1.050. Still, Helton not only kept his head on the ball in a year without Larry Walker in front of him, he walked at Ted Williams-like rates and hit virtually everywhere he went. Runner-up: Todd Walker, who was traded to the Rockies late, but played a good second base and hit over 1.000. His combination of speed and contact will be a key part of the Rockies' lineup next year. Honorable mention to lefty reliever Gabe White, who had an ERA right around 2.00 and won 10 games -- impressive numbers anywhere, simply fabulous at Coors. Had he been playing for a winner, he'd've gotten at least as much notice as Jeff Zimmerman did last year for the Rangers. San Diego - Ryan Klesko Klesko, out from under the rigid-minded Bobby Cox' heel and lowered expectations, spent the off-season getting into shape and the results showed. Finally hitting at acceptable levels against lefties, his OPS was a career-high .950 and the guy even managed to steal twenty bases. The svelter Klesko also was surprisingly excellent at first base, making only a half dozen errors and showing decent range. Runner-up: Phil Nevin. Nevin had an off year defensively, making over twenty errors, but his OPS was on par with Klesko's and before his late injury he played in more games than did Ryan. My inclination is to still consider Nevin a sounder ballplayer, but Klesko's contributions this year seemed slightly more important to San Diego's staying close to .500. Honorable mention to Trevor Hoffman, who despite having a bit of an off year, relatively speaking, was the most visible player on the team and provided some confidence and some come-back wins that kept the fan base happier than it would've been in a year without Tony Gwynn.
|
| The Baseball Crank may be contacted at crank@thediamondangle.com. (c) 2001 Matthew Wall/The Baseball Crank. |
