National League MVP 2011: Braun = MVP! (reply #318)

[rluzinski]

wOBA is context neutral metric. The voters want to know the actual impact of the would-be MVPers performance. WPA/LI seems more appropriate:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/...nth=0&season1=2011&ind=0

 

And if you want to use UZR to estimate how well a player has been defensively for a given year, you need to regress it (a lot).

[dlk9s]

wOBA is context neutral metric. The voters want to know the actual impact of the would-be MVPers performance. WPA/LI seems more appropriate:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/...nth=0&season1=2011&ind=0

According to that, Braun is #1. Yuni and Casey are 2nd and 3rd last in WPA/LI, respectively. Funny thing is, Casey is 2nd best in the NL in "Clutch" on that list.

[Ennder]

Park factors are useless and positional adjustments are highly suspect. There are no context neutral stats, trying to adjust stats is a futile process.

[cwolf2012]

"Park factors are useless and positional adjustments are highly suspect. There are no context neutral stats, trying to adjust stats is a futile process.

"

 

Do you have a particular source for this? I'd like to read it if you do.

[Thundercat32]

hey fellas,

 

i thought some might enjoy this post i made on another brewers fan forum

 

"boy that's a good one cash. i'm not sure it shouldn't be cliff lee, but it's unlikely the writers give it to a pitcher. especially since halladay would take away votes from lee. not that writers would vote for halladay for the mvp also, but they might not vote for cliff lee for mvp under the logic he had "help".

 

i think fielder might take away votes from braun and maybe he should. i also think justin upton deserves some consideration. it's an odd season for mvp though. most of the best hitters aside from braun, fielder, or upton are on teams that won't make the playoffs. for example, lance berkman, albert pujols, matt kemp, joey votto, mike stanton, and troy tulowitzki. and of the 4 playoff teams only the brewers have a dominant offense. ryan howard is 22nd in ops in the nl. dan uggla might deserve a mention, but i say might because he sucked ass for the first 4 months of the season and the braves were still on pace for the playoffs. his end of the season numbers will be impressive, but he didn't spur his team onto victory.

 

braun on the other hand has an excellent case as you mention. currently .992 ops first in the nl. but my favorite stat from braun is in the 37 games weeks has missed to date. his triple slash during that time is .356/.413/.610 for a 1.023 ops! in those 37 games he has compiled 33 runs 7 hrs 26 rbi 12 sbs and the brewers have gone 29-8. now that's just beastly.

 

as for prince, his triple slash over those 37 games is .303/.392/.528 for a .920 ops. but prince's ops is .947 for the season so he didn't necessarily kick it into another gear. even tho his counting stats for those 37 games are 26 runs 8 hrs 34 rbi 0 sbs.

 

maybe the most impressive note for braun is his increased run production and jointly increased stolen base production in the 37 games weeks has missed. in these 37 games braun has scored 34% of his season total in runs and has stolen 39% of his season total in sbs, in only 26% of the brewers total games to this point. just take a look at his stolen base log during that time. note he's 12 of 14 in steal attempts (86%, 84% on the season)

 

aug 5th w 8-1 @ hou, top 4th 6-1 with 1 out braun walks steals 2nd, fielder k's, mcgehee lines out

 

aug 10th w 5-1 @ stl, top 3rd 1-1 with 1 out braun walks steals 2nd, fielder doubles him home (next batter mcgehee grounds out, betancourt singles, hairston jr. flies out)

 

aug 13th w 1-0 vs pit, bot 7th 1-0 with 2 outs braun singles steals 2nd, fielder intentionally walked, mcgehee k's

 

aug 15th w 3-0 vs la, bot 7th 1-0 with 0 outs braun singles steals 2nd, fielder grounds out braun advances to 3rd, mcgehee intentionally walked (??? mattingly), betancourt pops out, wilson grounds out

 

aug 19th w 6-1 @ mets, top 1st 0-0 with 2 outs braun reaches on an error steals 2nd, fielder singles him home

 

aug 21st w 6-2 @ mets, top 6th 1-0 with 0 outs braun singles steals 2nd, fielder singles him home (next 3 batters retired in order). then top 8th 3-2, with 0 outs braun singles and advances to second on a fielding error (lol mets) steals 3rd, hairston jr. singles him home

 

aug 23rd w 11-4 @ pit, top 2nd 5-0 with 2 outs braun doubles steals 3rd, mcgehee homers. then top 6th 7-2, with 1 out braun walks steals 2nd, fielder doubles him home

 

aug 24th l 0-2 @ pit, top 4th 0-1 with 1 out braun singles steals 2nd, fielder k's, mcgehee walks, betancourt grounds out

 

aug 26th w 5-2 vs cubs, bot 3rd 0-2 with 2 outs braun walked steals 2nd, mcgehee k's

 

aug 31st l 3-8 vs stl, bot 1st 1-2 with 1 out braun singles steals 2nd, fielder flies out, braun picked off taking off early for 3rd

 

sept 4th w 4-0 @ hou, top 4th 2-0 with 0 outs braun singles caught stealing 2nd

 

of the 12 steals, 5 steals led directly to runs and he scored an additional time on a casey mcgehee homer. 8 steals came in a 1 run or tied game at the time, another steal came in a game the brewers trailed by 2. 7 of the steals came with 1 or 2 outs and prince fielder at the plate, 2 more steals came with 2 outs and fielder having just been retired. obv, braun has little confidence in anyone not named prince fielder to drive him home which i think is wise and also optimal. not to mention of his 14 attempts i can only really question one. aug 31st vs stl, getting picked off leaving for 3rd early with 2 outs is pretty bad.

 

also, on july 28th the first game without weeks the brewers had a .5 game lead on the cardinals, a 1.5 game lead on the pirates, and a 5.5 game lead on the reds. fast forward to sept 7th and those numbers go 9.5 game lead on cards, 14.5 game lead on reds, and 19.5 game lead on pirates.

 

geez, how can you not give the mvp to braun? and i didn't even set out with that thought in mind. the first 2 paragraphs of this post were just my first impressions thinking about the mvp discussion. once i started looking into the stats for the 37 game absence from weeks. i'm convinced the mvp deserves to go to braun."

[adamds22]

I'm not sure I get all this talk nationally about Kemp, I understand he is a good hitter but he is on a sub .500 team. I heard somewhere there has only been 5 MVP's on a sub .500 team ever and 1 pitcher in the last 25 years so my opinion it is down to Braun, Upton, Fielder and those would be my picks in that order. I really hope it finishes Braun, Fielder, Upton.

[Baldkin]

I'm not sure I get all this talk nationally about Kemp, I understand he is a good hitter but he is on a sub .500 team. I heard somewhere there has only been 5 MVP's on a sub .500 team ever and 1 pitcher in the last 25 years so my opinion it is down to Braun, Upton, Fielder and those would be my picks in that order. I really hope it finishes Braun, Fielder, Upton.

Yeah, dang that Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw, they really should've done more to make their team a winner.

[Thundercat32]

Braun is a terrible fielder. Braun is as bad in LF as Kemp is in center.

???

[RockCoCougars]

Braun isn't really that bad in LF. I've seen much worse in recent Brewers' history. Kevin Mench and Carlos Lee spring to mind immediately. Rightly or wrongly, Kemp has no shot because he plays for the Dodgers. That's just the way it is.

[endaround]

Braun is a terrible fielder. Braun is as bad in LF as Kemp is in center.

???

Why is that a question? Braun is bad. Yeah he isn't the absolute worse, a disinterested Carlos Lee is worse. But Braun is a terrible fielder

[Ennder]

"Park factors are useless and positional adjustments are highly suspect. There are no context neutral stats, trying to adjust stats is a futile process.

"

 

Do you have a particular source for this? I'd like to read it if you do.

Park factors are useless because every park helps and hurts different types of players, there is no all encompassing single park factor that makes any kind of sense. Every stat is flawed in some way and when you are trying to adjust them based on things like park, position etc it just makes them flawed in different ways. Then if you are adjusting for things like that why not adjust for things like BABIP which just introduces more little flaws etc. You have to just pick the stat you like and go with it and realize that there is a wide margin of error in all of them.

[Thundercat32]

Braun is a terrible fielder. Braun is as bad in LF as Kemp is in center.

???

Why is that a question? Braun is bad. Yeah he isn't the absolute worse, a disinterested Carlos Lee is worse. But Braun is a terrible fielder

nah not braun, i'm puzzled why you think the consensus is kemp is a poor defender (in centerfield).

[jmeks23]

I think regardless of peripherals, if Braun hits .330, gets to 30 HR, and gets to 100 RBI hes got it. That's also assuming the Brewers continue to play well and make the playoffs.

 

If you take that big of a year, plus the runs scored, plus the OPS, and the SB then I just think the voters will go with him. Kemp is probably having the best year, and Fielder has been good enough to get it as well but Braun just does everything. And maybe his defense is bad, but the voters aren't sabermetricians

[cwolf2012]

"You have to just pick the stat you like and go with it and realize that there is a wide margin of error in all of them."

 

I understand why park factors don't apply well to individual players. I was more focused on the positional adjustments part. Your statement is a pretty broad claim against positional adjustments, and I haven't seen a lot of evidence against it in my past readings. As such, I'd really like to get a source so I can evaluate it. If you don't have one, that's fine, I thought I'd ask.

[The Truth]

Unless Braun completely tanks the last 11 games (and being a streaky hitter, his 2 HR's last night indicate he might be about to go on a tear), I think he has the NL MVP Award sewn up. It'll be a slam dunk if he wins the batting title. But even without it, with 30 HR's, 30 SB's and a batting average over .320 (especially if he finishes over .330!) and a team in the playoffs, that is an MVP season right there....

 

 

edited the title)

[jjfanec]

There is already a thread on this but I am sure the mods will merge them. I will agree with you though. I dont see how it cant be Braun right now. There is no way you give it to a guy on a non-playoff team when a guy on a playoff bound team is having the year Braun is having. Braun, Upton and Fielder are all deserving so Kemp, Votto and Tulo will have to wait another year. Braun has to be number 1 right now.

 

#1 in OPS (#1 in Slug and #4 in OBP)

#2 in BA

#8 in HR

#5 in RBI

#1 in runs

#7 in SB

#5 in WAR behind Votto, Kemp, Tulo and Upton

 

His strike out numbers are actually very good. He is tied for 48th in the NL (while being 26th in walks with 2 IBB)

 

Sure he is not a good fielder but does that matter that much to voters. And yes he missed some games but that has not effected stats like Runs, HR, and RBI's a lot. I know those are not great stats to determine overall value but they do get looked at and Braun does well in the other stats.

 

In my mind it is a 2 player race between Upton and Braun. I think Braun wins due to offensive stats and name recognition

[The Truth]

31 HR's and 103 RBI's now ... currently leading the NL in BA, OPS & SLG.... The Great # 8

[Ennder]

"You have to just pick the stat you like and go with it and realize that there is a wide margin of error in all of them."

 

I understand why park factors don't apply well to individual players. I was more focused on the positional adjustments part. Your statement is a pretty broad claim against positional adjustments, and I haven't seen a lot of evidence against it in my past readings. As such, I'd really like to get a source so I can evaluate it. If you don't have one, that's fine, I thought I'd ask.

 

They are just very subjective, check into multiple systems that come up with adjustments and they don't really agree on the values. It is hard to say exactly how much more valuable a SS is than a 1B than a CF etc, then when you add P and C into the mix it gets really hard. Any discussion you see on the topic of positional adjustments almost always includes a disclaimer that the values are a bit suspect. Then any time you start comparing to the average or replacement player you get into even murkier waters, does Albert Pujols getting hurt make all hitters in the league better, because OPS+ says it does.

 

I guess my point is not to argue if two pretty close in value players are better than each other, saying one guy is a 3.5 WAR player and another is a 3 WAR player really doesn't mean much because the margins of error are just too large. The other point is that no matter what stat you pick to judge players by it is going to be flawed in some way, so telling someone their stat is flawed isn't going to mean too much because your stat is flawed too. They all are flawed in one way or another.

[BREWCREW5]

MVP! MVP! MVP!

 

I love it! Ryan Braun!

[cwolf2012]

"They are just very subjective, check into multiple systems that come up with adjustments and they don't really agree on the values."

 

It seems to me that a positional adjustment would be incredibly easy to come up with. Just compare league average wOBA between each position and determine how many runs per game that equals.

[Funketown]

It seems to me that a positional adjustment would be incredibly easy to come up with. Just compare league average wOBA between each position and determine how many runs per game that equals.

Positional adjustments should really address defense though, which is why measures like that are generally not used.

[The Truth]

He's opened up a .336 to .331 lead in BA over Reyes now ... 9 games left. Let's go Great 8, grab that first batting title and first MVP!!!!

[Baldkin]

It seems to me that a positional adjustment would be incredibly easy to come up with. Just compare league average wOBA between each position and determine how many runs per game that equals.

Positional adjustments should really address defense though, which is why measures like that are generally not used.

They should address the scarcity of a league average hitter at the position.

[rluzinski]

It seems to me that a positional adjustment would be incredibly easy to come up with. Just compare league average wOBA between each position and determine how many runs per game that equals.

Positional adjustments should really address defense though, which is why measures like that are generally not used.

They should address the scarcity of a league average hitter at the position.

Isn't that approach really just a proxy for what we really want to know? We want to know how valuable an average defensive performance is at one position vs. another. It's only because that question is so difficult to answer that we start looking at offense.

[Baldkin]

They should address the scarcity of a league average hitter at the position.

Isn't that approach really just a proxy for what we really want to know? We want to know how valuable an average defensive performance is at one position vs. another. It's only because that question is so difficult to answer that we start looking at offense.

I think UZR adjusts for defense well enough as it is, isn't that the entire point of UZR? As far as I know it is not adjusted positionally, but rather for the average run values of everything in a given zone (so a ball hit to the LF gap has a higher run value than a grounder to SS)

The "positional bonus" used in a statistic like WAR is to give value to guys like Mike Cameron, who offer a league average bat at a prime defensive position, making his bat well above the league-positional-average.