Trip, trip, triple the fun

Dave Paisley

Roger Clemens won a fifth, and well-deserved, Cy Young this week while the NL race was a lot tighter. Predicting the winners of the postseason awards is a tricky business, but here's my handy rule of thumb. Look at the triple crown stats. It's that easy. You may or not believe that Triple Crown stats (Wins, ERA, strikeouts) are a good measure of a pitcher, but it's a stone cold fact that the BBWAA writers do.

You also know that if it can be quantified in some obscure, convoluted manner, then I'll do it for you. So taking the league leader in each category as the standard, I've allotted one point to each category, and factored each player's contribution accordingly. Add the components up, divide by three, and you get a maximum score of 1.000. Clemens, of course, tied for wins and won the other two categories handily, so he gets the maximum score. After that, only Pedro Martinez and David Cone even get close. So there's your hands down winner. Back to back Triple Crowns, back to back Cy Youngs.
 

Player	Triple Crown Rating
Roger Clemens	1.000
Pedro Martinez	.931
David Cone	.839
David Wells	.754
Rick Helling	.735
Aaron Sele	.731

Over in the National League, the picture was less clear, but here are the Triple Crown rankings.
 

Player	Triple Crown Rating
Kevin Brown	.896
Greg Maddux	.860
Curt Schilling	.811
Tom Glavine	.807
Al Leiter	.776
Shane Reynolds	.760

So my favorite for the award (and my personal, biased pick too, despite Maddux) was Kevin Brown. It wouldn't have been a shock if Maddux won it (well, it would, given the BBWAA's general ignorance), but the writers punished him for not being superhuman down the stretch. Overall, the voting was quite close between the top three, so Glavine snuck in by virtue of Brown splitting the San Diego vote with Trevor Hoffman, the joker in this particular deck.

Thus we have the curious logic of the BBWAA. Maddux should have won it, Brown was the likely alternative, but he loses because enough voters thought that Hoffman, the closer on the same team, was more valuable than Brown.

How about the MVP awards? Setting aside possible pitcher votes, the batting Triple Crown stats (batting average, RBI, home runs) are also a good indicator. Here's the AL.
 

Player	Triple Crown Rating
Albert Belle	.937
Ken Griffey Jr.	.923
Juan Gonzalez	.914
Manny Ramirez	.865
Alex Rodriguez	.818
Mo Vaughn	.814

Media lunacy involves Triple Crown stats and who went to the playoffs. On the above chart, then, you'd have to eliminate Belle and Griffey, and guess that Juan Gonzalez would win, followed by maybe Manny Ramirez and Mo Vaughn. Those three finished first, seventh and fifth respectively. The overall order of finish very closely mirrored that of Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, who was foolish enough to share his so-called thoughts with ESPN readers.

Gonzalez fell from favor with a poor (i.e. stopped getting lucky RBIs) second half, but a hamstring injury diverted attention just enough to preserve his reputation. Suspicious that it happened after it was obvious that the extraordinary OBP of the guys ahead of him had dried up, don't you think?

Manny Ramirez is pretty darn good, but lacks the media pizzazz, but he did make some inroads on the voters. MVPs are frequently based on cumulative performance, so it's nice to see him getting a little recognition. Alex Rodriguez was highly touted, but fell way behind Garciaparra and Jeter mostly due to playing on the same bad team as Griffey. Again, to be fair to the sportswriters, there is a subtle influence of positional adjustments in voting shortstops second and third.

Finally, the NL hitting Triple Crown table:
 

Player	Triple Crown Rating
Sammy Sosa	.930
Mark McGwire	.918
Vinny Castilla	.816
Andres Galarraga	.745
Greg Vaughn	.739
Moises Alou	.729

Interesting that Sosa tops McGwire, showing that the likelihood of him winning the MVP is not such a pipe dream. We can argue OPS all we want, but those BBWAA guys want to see results, dammit! And that means RBIs as well as home runs, and carrying your team to the playoffs should count for something!

That mini rant aside, Sosa would be a fine pick for MVP. Those two are far and away above the rest of the pack it should be a definite two horse race, but given the traditional factors mentioned above, I expect Sammy to win.

The crapshoot for the remainder of the positions should include Piazza, Walker, Bonds and Bagwell as well as the also-rans listed above. Vladimir Guerrero is a good youngster who might get a few token votes. It's never too early to start lobbying for MVP 2001.

Now folks, remember that this is merely an attempted analysis of the collective mind of the BBWAA voters, not an endorsement of their practices. Don't try this with your fantasy teams.

 

about the author

Dave Paisley attempted to vote for the BBWAA's post-season awards, but the jig was up when his coherent selections just didn't jibe with the forged signature of Mark Kiszla. Thank him for trying anyway at drdjp@strikethree.com.