The Tao's AL MVP Ballot

Hey kids! It's the last in our series of ballots for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance posteason awards.

We've always had some trouble with the whole "valuable" aspect of MVP awards. Mostly because when people start talking about a player's relative value, they point to a whole host of things that are generally beyond the player's control.

Was the player on a winner? A playoff team? Was he on a team that was good enough to get into the playoffs, but not good enough to get there without him? How tangible were his intangibles? And how big of a towel does he need to cover his dong after getting out of the shower?

(Okay, that last one was proabably a step too far. But you get the idea.)

In some ways, this is why we'd prefer to think of these awards as "Player of the Year" awards, so that you can rid yourself of all the extraneous horsepoop. Alas, we'll just play along so as not to be any more difficult than we need to be.

So how do we determine value? Well, as we mentioned in this snazzy interview with the New York Daily News' Jesse Spector, we're more of an OPS dude. Because some of the advanced metrics make our pretty head hurt. So we took a look at the leaders in OPS, then figured it out based upon our particular likes and dislikes and prejudices. (And our apologies to Shin-Soo Choo, who we really tried hard to get into our top ten. Because we think he's awesome. Maybe next year.) Anyways, here's what we came up with.

1) Joe Mauer, Twins - 1.031 OPS, 28 HR,96 RBI, 8.2 WAR: There really shouldn't be any debate about this, because Mauer's year was so far ahead of anyone else's. And if you are so inclined, you can consider the fact that he is a catcher, and heap an extra scoop full of intangible goodness on top. Mauer's season was one for the ages.

2) Mark Teixeira, Yankees - .948 OPS, 39 HR, 122 RBI, 5.2 WAR: There are those who love Derek Jeter, and think the sun shines out his ass, and therefore any of the glow around the new first baseman must just be the refracted light from his glory. But we think that Teixeira's outstanding season stands on its own.

3) Ben Zobrist, Rays - .948 OPS, 27 HR, 91 RBI, 8.5 WAR: In addition to putting up numbers that were stunningly surprising in the heart of a strong lineup, Zobrist also provided unparalleled defensive flexibility. By season's end, Zobrist had played every position on the diamond, save for catcher and pitcher, and provided good defense wherever he played.

4) Miguel Cabrera. Tigers -.942 OPS, 34 HR, 103 RBI, 5.5 WAR: Cabrera is a scary good hitter who more than carried his weight in a Detroit lineup that scuffled for much of the year.

5) Evan Longoria, Rays - .889 OPS, 33 HR, 100 RBI, 7.3 WAR: Longoria's exceptional fielding (14.4 UZR/150) bumps him up on this list.

6) Derek Jeter, Yankees - .871 OPS, 18 HR, 107 RBI, 7.4 WAR: We might hate him and all he stands for, but he had his best season in years, and posted a sterling .406 OBP.

7) Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox -.961 OPS, 27 HR, 99 RBI, 5.5 WAR: Okay, we really hate Youk. And we could make an argument that he should be higher on this list, but we suspect that his OBP is aided by some Fenway calls and his SLG is aided by the the Fenway dimensions. And we hate him.

8) Kendry Morales, Angels -.924 OPS, 34 HR, 108 RBI, 4.3 WAR: One of our favorite breakout stories this season. He has stepped up to the next level, assuming the role of the impact bat in the middle of the Angels lineup.

9) Adam Lind, Blue Jays -.932 OPS, 35 HR, 114 RBI, 3.7 WAR: In the value metrics, he takes a step back because of his dubious fielding and his role as the DH for most of the season. But Lind was the most consistent in the Jays offense, which actually ranked in near the top of the AL.

10) Alex Rodriguez, Yankees -.933 OPS, 30 HR, 100 RBI, 4.6 WAR: Love him or hate him, A-Rod produced in his 124 games this season. In a full season, he would have been in the top three.

Our 2009 Roy Halladay Award ballot (Formerly the Cy Young Award)

If you ask us, they should just give Roy Halladay the Cy Young award every year, and then let him decide which pitcher in the league he deems most worthy of winning the award. Because you know he'd always pick exactly the right guy, with his trademark precision.

Alas, that's not the case, so indulge us as we go through our charade of a shadow ballot for the Baseball Bloggers Alliance:

1) Stupid Zack Greinke of the Stupid Kansas City Stupid Royals and his stupid excellent numbers (2.16 ERA, 242 Ks / 51 BBs, 1.07 WHIP, 9.4 WAR): There's no question that we want to give the top spot on our ballot to Roy Halladay, but Greinke's numbers across the board are just thatmuch too amazing to ignore. Those are Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez numbers, so it would be a touch hard to defend our homerism if we were to ignore his great season. (Although having said that, we would note that Greinke's numbers probably wouldn't look nearly as shiny if he toed the rubber ten times against the Yankees and Red Sox.)

2) His Roy-al Docness, Harry LeRoy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays (2.79 ERA, 208 Ks / 38 BBs, 1.13 WHIP, 7.3 WAR): Truth be told, there isn't a single pitcher in the Majors that we'd rather have than Doc. And if at some point in the next few years, if he should go to some other division where he's notfacing the Yanks and Sox and Rays all of the time, or if he should go to pitch in the Quadruple-A National League, he'll post numbers that will make people nauseous. We'll give the nod to Greinke because we're having a hard time quantifying the difference between their stregnth of schedules. (So essentially, we can't give Doc the award because we suck at math. We're sorry Roy...we've failed you again.)

3) Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners (2.49 ERA, 217 Ks / 71 BBs, 1.14 WHIP, 6.9 WAR): King Felix's ERA and win totals were better than Doc's, but most of the other relevant numbers are on par and we really could give a shit about wins. Plus, Doc plays in a man's game in the AL East. So we keep Hernandez in third for this year.

Honorable Mention: Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers (3.45 ERA, 269 Ks / 63 BBs, 1.18 WHIP, 8.2 WAR) : We're pretty certain that lots of bloggers will point to Verlander's value metric as justification for him to be on the ballot. But he just got too many easy innings this season in a pitchers' park and a pitcher's division. The big numbers he posted versus the White Sox, Cleveland and Kansas City don't impress us much.

Interesting fun facts!
Although the three non-Halladays mentioned above had good seasons, they were no match for the mighty offense of the Blue Jays this season. Each of them got two starts against the Jays this season, and posted some of their worst ERA numbers against the Toronto Nine:

Greinke: 5.25
Felix: 6.59
Verlander: 10.97

Who knows? Maybe the Jays were trying to put a dent into their Cy Young chances for Doc.

I disagree with all you crazy bloggers

Part of the fun of partaking in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance postseason voting was the notion that maybe those of us who reside outside of the press box would get it right, and prove just how vastly superior we are to the washed up hacks in the BBWAA.

After reviewing the BBA press release from yesterday (hey, they quoted us!), all we can say is: Oops.

Mind you, our choice for AL Rookie of the Year, the A's Andrew Bailey, took the day with nine first place votes and 48 points total in the 5-3-1 scoring system. But what shocked us was that Brett Anderson, who we even considered as our choice at the top of our ballot, received one first place vote and our second place vote...and that's it.

(And full marks to the kids at Camden Crazies, who had the stones to put Anderson at the top of their list.)

To which we say: Really? Put Anderson's numbers up against second place finisher Rick Porcello (four first place votes), and Anderson pretty much takes the day across the board. Sure, Porcello's ERA starts with a number 3, but he got that tenth of a point by feasting on the lesser lights in the NL Central in interleague play.

We give the young Porcello full marks for his judo hip toss of Kevin Douchekilis, but there's no way he makes it to the top of our ballot.

Other oddities: Elvis Andrus had a good year with the glove, but that .702 OPS is not enough to carry him over the top in our mind. (Apparently, three people disagreed.)

Also, some people seemed to be voting based on who they thought had generated the most hype through the season, or who had the most potential. We can't imagine any other reason why someone would vote for Matt Wieters, or have him at the top of their list (as one voter did).

So to all of you who got your ballot completely wrong (and there seems to be a lot of you), we respectfully disagree. And we fart in your general direction.

Other place where we've been quoted today, aside from in my own brain
Infield Fly Rule has assembled a postseason roundtable, in which yours truly, the inimitable eyebleaf, some soccer loving dude and the lovely and beguiling Katy Unger offer our remembrances of this season past.

There were so many memories, fond and otherwise, that the roundtable will be broken into three parts, so keep checking back.

Our AL Rookie of the Year Ballot

So we've been a little but delinquent with reflecting this, but late in the season, we agreed to take part in the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, which is intended to be the blog world's answer to the BBWAA. There are a bunch of interesting blogs covering most of the teams across the Majors (including four Jays blogs), so it's worth a gander.

Mostly, we wanted to get involved with the BBA so that we could vote on the postseason awards. And while we were trying to be magnanimous and allow our fellow Jays bloggers the opportunity to vote on Manager of the Year (an award that we kinda hate anyway), we're jumping in to cast our ballot for the AL Rookie of the Year.

With a few weeks left in the season, we probably would have had a completely different final three, but with a little time to look over the performances of the handful of candidates, we narrowed the field down to three. And so, here's how we saw it.

1) Andrew Bailey, Oakland A's - 1.31 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 91 Ks / 24 BBs, 26 saves in 83.1 IP.

Saves might be viewed amongst the more progressive thinkers as the most overestimated stat in baseball, and as such, a lot of voters might breeze past the Athletics' closer. But we couldn't look past that high K rate, and the excellent ratio. Even if Bailey hadn't been bestowed with the closer role, those numbers out of the pen put him amongst the elite late inning pitchers.

2) Brett Anderson, Oakland A's - 11-11, 4.06 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 150 Ks / 45 BBs in 175 IP.

With much of the focus through the season on the performances of the Tigers' Rick Porcello, the Rays Jeff Niemann and the Jays' Ricky Romero, Anderson's numbers in the end stand out across the board. His ERA was slightly higher than that of Niemann and Porcello, but his K rate, WHIP and K/BB ratio were much better.

3) Jeff Niemann, Tampa Rays - 13-9, 3.94 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 125 Ks / 59 BBs in 180.2 IP.

Given the choice between Niemann and Porcello, the Rays starters' higher K rate tips the scales in his favour.

Falling off the ballot
Among those who fell just short of our ballot were the Tigers' Porcello (not enough Ks, too much of his stats racked up against the NL); the Orioles' Nolan Reimold (good numbers, but not enough to rate a mention); the Orioles' Matt Wieters (he'll be good eventually, but his performance this year didn't stack up); the Rangers' Elvis Andrus (love his defense, but hate the .702 OPS); and the Jays' Ricky Romero (wore out by season's end, and the last six weeks pretty much wiped him off the ballot.)