Comments on: Yankee Panky: VORP for MVP

By: sonyahennystutu

sonyahennystutu — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:29:25 +0000

[30] Different kind of pressure = yes. There’s also more of it. Lots. To think otherwise seems silly to me.

By: rbj

rbj — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:45:38 +0000

There are good arguments for Mauer over Tex, based on stats & difficulty of the position.

However:
“An essentially meaningless home run, hit well after midnight (back in New York). I mean, I’m sorry, but the Yankees aren’t exactly in the middle of a pennant race anymore. They’ve got a huge lead over the second-place Red Sox. And if the Red Sox should somehow mount a late charge, the Yankees have a huger lead over the Rangers for that other postseason berth”

is crap. You want to penalize a guy because he helps his team have a significant lead over #2? I want a sizable lead in order to get guys rest, get the rotation in order and get Mo rested for October. A large lead is valuable and shouldn’t be counted against someone. Nor should the fact that he plays with other great players. What should Tex have done, gone to Baltimore and put up great numbers with a crappy team and gone home after September to prepare his MVP acceptance speech?

Now Mauer is having a phenomenal season, especially for a catcher, but base the award on his stats vs. other players’ stats.

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:36:24 +0000

You have to be an insider to read the full stories, but let me be clear that the first link is what I say it is. Here’s how its summarized on this page:

Two different debates converge with Jeter
Rob Neyer, ESPN Insider

Whether you’re an empiricist or an intuitionist, your best choice for AL MVP is Derek Jeter.
ESPN Insider Story | Conversation | November 21, 2006

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:35:06 +0000

[32] Hmm, let me try this again and see if it works this time.

By: vockins

vockins — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:55:19 +0000

[14] Should team UZR and defensive efficiency be corallated? If not, why not?

By: Will Weiss

Will Weiss — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:19:08 +0000

[29] Sorry, Shaun. I was posting and didn’t see your comment. Please pass along those Neyer links advocating Jeter. I’d love to see them.

By: Will Weiss

Will Weiss — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:17:39 +0000

[25] The hitch to Neyer’s argument re: Morneau’s victory is that Jeter is not mentioned. At all. It’s about Mauer in the context of where he finished in the voting. He said Mauer was more valuable than Morneau in ’06, and makes a great and proper case for it. But he should have mentioned Jeter, who was more valuable than both.

By: Raf

Raf — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:17:28 +0000

[27] Ed Whitson’s a commonly cited example. He had bad years before he came to NY, he had bad years after he left. Were they the result of not being able to handle playing in the “cauldron” of San Francisco or San Diego? What about Jeff Weaver? He couldn’t handle the pressure of playing in Seattle, Anaheim or Los Angeles? Javier Vazquez? Did he all of a sudden realize that he couldn’t handle pitching in NY after 1/2 a season? Is pitching for NY is any more stressful than pitching for the Cuban National team? Or defecting from Cuba, like Contreras did? Have you ever seen how hot the crowds are at Hanshin Tigers games? Is there a different kind of pressure pitching for them than there is pitching for the Yankees?

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:17:07 +0000

[24] [25] I had a couple of other links in the post that’s sitting in moderation land, but yes – Neyer absolutely advocated for Jeter in 2006, and complained that Morneau won over both Jeter and Mauer.

[19] FWIW, I agree with you completely.

By: Will Weiss

Will Weiss — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:13:53 +0000

[25] Thank you for those links. I didn’t remember Neyer’s reaction, and didn’t want to make this column an attack on him and Pos, because of the respect level there. I also didn’t want to extend it to Bill Simmons-level word count.

By: sonyahennystutu

sonyahennystutu — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:57:28 +0000

[19] Sorry Raf but I’m going to have to disagree with you. Completely. If you think playing here – and succeeding here – are the same as playing and succeeding anywhere, then I simply don’t know what to say.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:50:02 +0000

[25] Ortrage, n. : The feeling of intense irritation bordering on fury upon discovering the crumbs your housemate left all over the sofa during a late night Oreo binge.

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:42:22 +0000

MOre Rob Neyer ortrage from 2006, after Morneau undeservedly won the MVP:

http://www.robneyer.com/generic.htm

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:39:10 +0000

[23][21] For what it’s worth, here is an article by Neyer from last year in which he complains about Pedroia winning the MVP, and also about Morneau winning two years prior over Mauer.

http://tinyurl.com/maxdux

I think, perhaps, accusations of “selective outrage” are exaggerated.

By: monkeypants

monkeypants — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:35:59 +0000

[21] Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Neyer advocate Jeter for MVP in 1999, and advocate Jeter and Mauer over Morneau in 2006.

By: The Hawk

The Hawk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:31:04 +0000

[7] I tend to agree.

I think the VORPal sword ought to be sheathed for MVP consideration, for the most part. Measuring against other players at your position may be good for determining relative value but I don’t think it is the right measuring rod for overall value. What if everyone else at your position sucks? On the other hand, just cause you play a “big numbers” position shouldn’t mitigate your MVP chances. Great production is great production, whether it’s expected or not.

By: Yankster

Yankster — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:30:50 +0000

[0] My favorite part of this great post is the very fair question of where Neyer and Pos’s outrage is on Jeter’s exclusion. Without outrage there, I can’t help but feel that they are biased (against either front runners, a team, or a city). Shouldn’t they attack Morneau’s win, thus stealing with the left while giving with the right?

Although I’d like to see Jeter win it, because I think he’s the most valuable player in the American League, I think it’s fair, sabermetrics in or out, to be astonished at Mauer’s season. I hope Yankees fans can keep respecting this great baseball player’s astonishing achievement while they advocate for whoever they want to win.

By: RIYank

RIYank — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:19:53 +0000

That’s interesting, Shaun. I had always just assumed that VORP ‘worked’, so to speak. So, if you sum up the VORP of everybody on each team, you should get a value for each team that does predict the number of runs each team scores — not the absolute number, because there’s still an unknown left (God doesn’t tell us what a team full of Replacement Players would score), but the relative number. And the prediction for any given season may be off, but over a decade the expected values should be about right.
But if Tango is right, then there’s a systematic (undervaluing walks) bias in VORP. That’s really surprising. Why does the sabermetric community stand for this?

I won’t squawk of Mauer wins the MVP. He was robbed (by his teammate) too, after all.

By: Raf

Raf — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:16:47 +0000

[12] It’s the same game there as it is here. 8 newspapers mean they have to answer the same questions a few more times. I would suspect players couldn’t care less about “endless talk radio” or a “have-to-win-it-all fanbase.” It’s nice to have, I guess, but it shouldn’t impact they job they have to do on the field.

There have been players that have succeeded and failed in NY & MIN. I find it difficult to believe that a player will fail in MIN because he stinks, yet, the same failure in NY would be attributed to him because “he can’t handle the pressure of playing for NY.”

By: Shaun P.

Shaun P. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:15:35 +0000

[16] Attack the factual basis of their arguments if you like, but attacking Posnanski and Neyer for being “small town, midwestern guys who just can’t stand the Yankees” is pointless. Ad hominem argument FAIL.

[6] [9] [14] I’ve got a post that’s hung up in the works – probably too many links in there – but yeah, with UZR, sample size is a problem. Lichtman (UZR’s creator) says so anytime anyone asks him.

For me, the best thing to do is to look at a range of metrics: Dewan’s +/-, UZR, Pinto’s PMR, and BP’s FRAA. None are perfect alone, but together, you get a very good picture.

Relying on errors, though, is just silly. The variations in official scorers gives way too much variance on errors.

[8] But Will – WARP does include VORP (or at least its somewhat-related cousin BRAR, which is a variation on RARP, I think).