Today, Pizza Cutter posted the first annual renegade BBWAA awards. He has a nice article discussing the results at The Hardball Times, and you can see the complete results here at "his" website.

These work much like the Fielding Bible awards. PC polled a bunch of statistically-friendly blogger types, compiled the results, and used that as the basis for the awards. Despite my almost complete lack of activity here the past several months, Pizza was kind enough to ask me to participate, and you can see my ballot here.

As you can see, while I seriously doubt that any of the other voters (there were 18 in all, myself included) used my total value rankings to make their decisions, the overall rankings of players conforms very closely to my rankings. For example, my AL MVP pick, Grady Sizemore of Cleveland, has generated several critical comments over the past month or so. But he came in tied for first with Minnesota's Joe Mauer (who I picked third). That's reassuring and gratifying--at the risk of sounding like a blowhard, I really do think that the data I post are the best of their kind that you can find on the internets.

There were only a handful of players who got a top-3 ranking in the Renegade awards who didn't also get at least a mention in my awards post. Here they are, along with what the total value stats say about them:

For NL Cy Young: Cole Hamels (60.2 RAR, 47.6 FIPRAR), voted to a tie for third.

Hamels was in a 3-way tie with Sabathia & Webb for third place in the votes. It's a very defensible choice: he ranked 3rd overall in the NL in RAR. But his FIP (3.56) wasn't quite as glorious as his ERA (3.09), and that knocked him down to "just" 7th place according to FIPRAR. I'd like to think that doesn't take anything away from him--he had a fabulous season, and he flat out overmatched the Brewers in the first playoff game.

For AL Rookie of the Year: Alexi Ramirez (17 RAR, -9 field, +2 position adjust = 10 total value), voted third.

Here's the only one that I have some actual issues with. Ramirez didn't net any first place votes (Evan Longoria was the unanimous winner), but he got two second-place votes and three third-place votes, ranking him third overall, though well behind Mike Aviles. Offensively, while Ramirez showed nice power, he also proved to be very averse to the walk, resulting in a below average OBP of 0.317 and a fairly unimpressive RAR of 17. And defensively, at least based on one year of data, he doesn't look particularly good either. I discarded my rookie rankings by accident after making my awards post, but 10 runs above replacement in total value puts him very far down on the rookie rankings according to my numbers. Maybe in the 10th to 15th range among AL rookies?

By contrast, mine was the only vote for Denard Span of Minnesota. Now, we're only talking about a third place vote here, but I think the guy deserves a bit more recognition. Oh well!

For the NL Rookie of the Year: Joey Votto (38 RAR, +10 field, -11 posadj = 37 total value), voted second.

I actually did mention Votto in my awards post, but by the numbers he was just barely outperformed by the strong rookie pitching tandem of Jurrjens and Kurota. Nevertheless, the guy had an outstanding season, showing a nice balance between on-base ability and power. It's true that he wasn't a world beater for a first basemen on offense, and I wonder if he'll get much better...but his plus defense for his position puts him in the second tier of first basemen this year, behind only Pujols, Teixeira, Berkman, and Youkilis, and essentially tied with Carlos Pena. I'm very happy to have him on my team moving forward.

Thanks again to Pizza Cutter for asking me to participate in his project!

Not sure if I'll do this with all the teams (probably not), but I'm watching the CHW/TB series this round so I can follow Griffey, and I'm really enjoying the Rays. So, I thought I'd do a very quick profile on them so I can learn about their season. I'm using the templates I've used this season for the Reds. Here we go...

AL East Division Wrap-Up

Been a while since neither Boston nor New York won this division...1997, in fact, when Baltimore beat out the Yankees by 2 games. Pythagoras indicates that Boston was probably the better team this year, but with a projected total of 92 wins, the Rays are no slouch team. ... What's particulary interesting to me, though, is that they may have been the third worst team--the Blue Jays projected to 93 wins, thanks to their amazing pitching this year.

Nevertheless, the Rays had a combination of good offense and quality pitching, which put them in position to take advantage of a bit of luck. Congrats to them. They certainly have waited long enough to see some success.

Hitting

While it pales in comparison to his amazing 2007 season, the Rays' best hitter was clearly Carlos Pena. Remember when he was available for nothing back in 2006? Oh well. After a slow start, Pena really turned it on in the second half, posting a 0.418 OBP & a 0.561 SLG...the Rays need him back in their lineup as soon as possible.....BJ Upton's power vanished this year, but he keeps getting on base thanks to a terrific walk rate and that provides a lot of value....Dioner Navarro had his best offensive season of this still-young career, bouyed primarily by a tremendous 24% line drive rate...players often return back to the 20% range following a season like that, but there are some who manage to maintain high line drive rates like that year after year (e.g. Chone Figgins).....The best power mark on the team, at least as measured by ISO, belongs to Ben Zobrist and his 10 2B's and 12 HR's in 200 AB's. That's rather out of character for him given his minor league career, though, so I'd be inclined to think that it's a mirage.....According to PrOPS, players who hit substantially better than their stats would indicate include Carlos Pena (might explain his first half?), Eric Hinske, Cliff Floyd, Willy Aybar, and Jonny Gomez. Players who may have gotten a bit lucky include Akinori Iwamura and (marginally) MVP-elected Jason Bartlett.

Overall, the Rays' offensive linear weights total 811 runs, which is 21 more than they actually scored. This arguably helps close the gap a bit between their Pythagorean record and their actual record.

Position Player Total Value
In yet another feather in his ROY cap, Evan Longoria comes in as the most valuable position player for the AL East champion Rays, at least by my numbers. Strong offense and strong defense at an above-average position pushes him over the superior offensive season of Carlos Pena.....Jason Bartlett, elected by the Tampa beat writers as the teams' MVP, clocks in here as the Rays 7th most valuable player, contributing just over a third of the value of Longoria when you factor in both offense and defense. Has Marc Lancaster commented on that? All I could find from him was this.....Navarro clocks in as the #4 player behind Longoria, Pena, and Upton. I'm surprised he doesn't get more fanfare for his season, which included great defense on top of his offensive quality.....Reserve Willy Aybar also places high on this list, outpacing (slightly) regulars like Barlett, Crawford, and Hinske (if he counts).....One thing that stands out for me on this list is that every full time starter is at least a roughly average defender at their positions, and no one pulled down the defense by more than 5 runs on this team. Overall, their fielding rates as 25 runs above average, which must rank it among the best in the league. Many have said that the biggest difference between last year's and this year's Rays is the improvement in their fielding performance (Longria to 3B, Iwamura to 2B, Upton to CF). This *is* a darn good fielding team, and it's a template for how the Reds could improve a great deal in a short period of time (the Brewers did something similar this year, with Braun to LF, Hall to 3B, and Cameron to CF).

Pitching
It won't come as a surpise that Shields takes top honors here, given his outstanding season. The Rays seem to have made a good choice in extending him prior to this season, and he's one of the better, lesser-known pitchers in baseball right now.....His teammate Matt Garza looks to have gotten a little bit lucky, but FIP still puts him at a 30+ RAR season along with slightly unlucky teammate Matt Sonnanstine.....Despite the injuries, power lefty Scott Kazmir continued to tally up the strikeouts when he did pitch.....Troy Percival was ejected from his role as a closer after tallying 28 saves (good thing too--check out that FIP and BABIP!), but Dan Wheeler doesn't look to be a whole lot better. The top players out of the bullpen, however, were unquestionably former Reds rehabber Grant Balfour and J.P. Howell, who make a powerful and intimidating right-left combination in middle relief. Manager Joe Maddon has been riding those two heavily during the first two games of the series, and with good reason.

Overall, the Rays' pitching base runs total 697, which is 12 more than they actually allowed. Combining this with the linear weights estimated total of 811 runs and plugging into a basic Pythagorean formula gives an expected winning percentage of 0.575 (93 wins). That's still 4 fewer than they actually had, and would move them down to second in the division. But it's one more win then you'd expect using their actual runs scored and allowed totals.

Overall, this is a good, balanced team with a lot of youth. Their best hitter (Pena) had a second-half resurgence, and they lost their MVP (Longoria) for a month due to injury. They have an excellent rotation, plus defense, and at least average hitting. The main weakness I see is a fairly weak back end of the bullpen, but that's bouyed to some degree by their quality middle relief in Balfour and Howell. It's an exciting team, and one that could absolutely win it all by the end of the month.

If I had a 3-player ballot for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year, this is how I'd vote. This is based largely on these data. Numbers are all given in runs.

AL MVP
1. Grady Sizemore - 64 RAR, +9 fielding, +2 position adjustment = 76 total value

His team's 0.500 season may have been a disappointment, but Sizemore had a spectacular season. Not only was he an effective offensive force in the pitching-heavy AL, but he played outstanding defense at a premium position. 745 plate appearances batting leadoff in 157 games also helps his cause--playing time matters. Sizemore's 76 total runs above replacement level is a good 1.5 wins better than the next closest player on a playoff team.

2. Alex Rodriguez - 60 RAR, +7 fielding, +2 position adjustment = 69 total value

Rodriguez had a monster year from a rate standpoint relative to the rest of his league. This is also the first year in recent memory (iirc) that he's shown an above-average fielding contribution from the hot corner. But he missed half of May with an injury, and that probably cost him his title this year. Again, playing time matters.

3. Tie @ 61 RAR: Joe Mauer (44 RAR + 7 field + 10 posadj) & Dustin Pedroia (50 RAR + 9 field + 2 posadj)

You can make a legitimate argument that either of these guys should be get the #2 slot instead of Rodriguez, simply because they were so important to teams that made the playoffs (or, in the Twins case, missed the playoffs by a single game). But I'll stick with the stats-based ranking, mostly because I think Sizemore is the AL MVP and so it's kind of a moot point.

Mauer seems to be drastically underappreciated by the press, who focus on his teammate Morneau (who, incidentally, I have ranked 46th in the AL thanks to poor defense at an offensive position). But Mauer, who provides outstanding offense and defense at the most challenging position in baseball, was clearly their best player...and arguably the third most valuable in the league.

Pedroia must continue to generate a huge collective shrug from scouts for his crazy-long swing, but the guy clearly can hit. And he can pick it in the field too, while proving to be quite durable over his first two seasons.

If I have to pick one, I'll go with Mauer, who has a full win lead in WPA over Pedroia.


NL MVP
1. Albert Pujols (89 RAR, +20 field, -11 posadj = 98 total value)

His team may have faded down the stretch, but Albert continues to be the standard against which all hitters are judged. The guy's an absolute beast as a hitter (led all of MLB in RAR), and is perhaps the top defensive first basemen in baseball. If you could forecast that a player would be worth ~100 runs above replacement this year, he would have been worth ~$44 million/year on the free agent market. That's ridiculous.

2. Chipper Jones (66 RAR, +14 field, +2 posadj = 81 RAR)

Chipper had an amazing season that like Rodriguez's in the AL was hampered only by a brief time on the disabled list. His '08 numbers indicate that he has been a top fielder this season, and he kept his OPS above 1.000 all season long. Another strong season or two, and he's going to make a pretty strong argument for the Hall of Fame.

3. Hanley Ramirez (69 RAR, +3 fielding, +7 posadj = 80 RAR)

Total value-wise, Ramirez essentially tied Chipper. But I don't trust his fielding numbers, because they've been so positively dreadful up until this season. If they're a small sample size effect (fielding stats need several seasons to stabilize), and he really hasn't improved, he probably should be kicked out of the top spot, giving the #3 position to the eternally underrated Chase Utley. But I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, at least until I see the 2008 Fan's Scouting Report numbers for Ramirez.

Crossovers

Manny Ramirez: 35 total value in the NL + 21 total value in the AL = 56 runs.
Mark Teixeira: 39 total value in the NL + 36 total value in the AL = 74 runs.

I tend to think that the MVP awards (like all of these league-specific awards) need to be based on specific contributions in a given league, but Teixeira's season puts him in the upper eschelon of players, and might have netted him an MVP award if he'd been with the Angels all year. Manny's defense continues to hamper his value, as usual.

AL Cy Young

1. Roy Halliday (82 RAR, 74 FIP-RAR)

It's been a two-horse race all year long, but in the end I'm giving the award to Roy Halliday. He led MLB in both RAR and FIP-RAR this season, and that pretty much is the definition of a Cy Young winner in my book. He also led all starters with more than 150 innings in BsR/G. His FIP wasn't quite as good as Lee's this year, but he pitched 23 more innings. That's more than two games when he was on the mound for the Jays, and that's ultimately what pushes him over the top. Dominant season. Again.

2. Cliff Lee (70 RAR, 70 FIP-RAR)

What a freaking improbable season by Lee. He went from battling for a starting job to the second-best season of any pitcher in baseball. There's already been a lot written about him, and there probably would be a lot more this offseason if the Indians had made the playoffs. But this year he saw huge upswings in his strikeout rate, huge decrease in his walks, and even his gb% went up by a good 10% this season. He turned 30 years old on August 30th...so is he a late bloomer, or a one-time flash in the pan? I really have no idea. I guess that's why we have Marcels.

3. Ervin Santana (59 RAR, 56 FIP-RAR)

He comes in a fairly distant third, but Santana continues to be a rather overlooked pitcher. A.J. Burnett actually finished just above him in FIP-RAR, but I'll give it to Santana in recognition of his vastly superior non-DIPSy numbers. Some of that might be luck or fielding, but pitchers do have some control over these things.


NL Cy Young

1. Tim Lincecum (70 RAR, 70 FIP-RAR)

Lincecum led the league in both RAR and FIP-RAR, which again makes it pretty easy for me to give him the award* (see note on Sabathia below). How long he'll last is anyone's guess, but I think it's clear that most teams drastically underrated the guy. ... And yes, I'll point out again that the Reds took Drew Stubbs ahead of this guy just three drafts ago. I will probably continue to beat that dead horse until his arm falls off. :)

2 & 3. Tie: Dan Haren (58 RAR, 61 FIP-RAR) & Brandon Webb (66 RAR, 56 FIP-RAR)

I can't decide between AZ's pair of starters. Haren's DIPS numbers are a tad better than Webb's, but Webb had a better BsR/G and threw a few more innings. I always expected that Haren was going to be a quality contributor this season, but I didn't expect that'd he'd be able to be competitive with a guy like Webb. I'd probably still rather have Webb on my team, but that's two Cy Young-caliber seasons in a row from Haren now...and he'll still just be 28 next season.

Crossovers

In case you're wondering, here's C.C Sabathia
RAR: 27 with Cleveland + 50 with Milwaukee = 77 RAR overall
FIP-RAR: 30 with Cleveland + 44 with Milwaukee = 74 FIP-RAR overall

That's essentially tied with Holliday's performance. It's better than Cliff Lee, and better than Tim Lincecum. So, overall, Sabathia is the #2 pitcher of the season. But does that mean that he wins the NL Cy Young? Personally, I'd probably say no, because again it's the NL Cy Young...but it wouldn't take a lot to convince me otherwise.

AL Rookie of the Year

1. Evan Longoria (36 RAR, +8 field, +2 posadj = 46 runs above replacement)

After signing an unprecedented contract extension to start his rookie year, Longoria had a magnificent opening season, despite missing a month to injury. His combination of a tremendous offensive threat and plus defense at the hot corner makes him the cream of this year's rookie class. Between Lincecum & Longoria, that 2006 amateur draft is looking pretty darn productive.

2. Mike Aviles (25 RAR, +6 field, +4 posadj = 35 runs)

While fairly old for a rookie at 27 years, and offensively outperforming anything he'd done prior to this year, Aviles rescued the Kansas City shortstop position with his plus defense and gap power. Not sure that he's a good candidate to continue this next year, but he had a great season and is the #2 rookie in the AL by my rankings.

3. Denard Span (27 RAR, +5 field, - 3 posadj = 29 runs)

It may come as a surprise to much of the media, but according to these data, newcomer Denard Span had a better season than teammate Justin Morneau, and was the #2 Twins position player behind Joe Mauer. Not much power from him, but an 0.387 OBP is acceptable production at just about any position.

NL Rookie of the Year

1. Geovany Soto (31 RAR, +2 field, + 10 posadj = 43 runs above replacement)

Duh. This one's a no-brainer, right? Soto had an outstanding position at the position that is the most difficult to fill on any major league roster. Terrific offense & competent defense puts Soto's name next to Mauer, McCann, and Martin as the elite catchers in the game today. It turns out, though, that it was closer than I expected...

2 & 3. Tie: Jair Jurrjens (33 RAR, 39 FIP-RAR) & Hiroki Kuroda (43 RAR, 39 FIP-RAR)

This pair of pitchers effectively tied for second in the rankings, just edging out the Reds' Joey Votto. If you go by straight-up RAR, Votto ranks ahead of Jurrjens. But I tend to favor FIP-RAR when evaluating pitchers because we're always dealing with relatively small samples with pitchers--even starting pitchers--and DIPS stats stabilize sooner than traditional statistics.

Jurrjens was acquired in the Edgar Renteria trade, and at 22 years old basically took over the role of ace on the beleaguered Atlanta Braves pitching staff. Clearly, that's looking like a bit of a steal.

On the other end of his career is Hiroki Kuroda, this season's top performing Japanese import. While he may not be in the majors for long at 33 years old, Kuroda stabilized the middle of the Dodgers rotation and is as much of a reason as any for the Dodgers' first division title since 2004.

I've updated my total value estimates to include all regular season games played, assuming Hardball Times & ESPN have updated all of their sites through last night's game.

You can read about all the methods in this series of posts. I have some additional comments on the methods at the bottom of this post for those who are interested.

Features:

I'll let you tour through the spreadsheet to see final player rankings. I'll submit a post in a few minutes with my picks for MVP, Cy Young, & Rookie of the Year.

A few additional comments for people interested in methods:

I say that these are preliminary, because there are a few additional adjustments I still have yet to do.

One, these are based on a base runs equation (for pitchers) and linear weights (for hitters) that are all based on 2003-2007 data. I'm going to calculate new equations that are optimized for 2004-2008 data one of these days. It won't make much difference, but the runs environment is decreasing in MLB and so it's worth doing.

Two, there is some discussion again about whether the most appropriate measure of chances for OOZ plays is innings played or balls in zone (BIZ). BIZ has always been a rather shaky estimate, but I've felt it was more likely to reflect the gb/fb tendencies of a given pitching staff. It may, however, confound the results, because it essentially measures chances in regions where OOZ plays were not possible. Innings is less likely to be biased, but is a bit coarser. I may make that change one of these days. This won't make much difference on a gross level, but it could conceivably make a big difference for some individual players with unusually high or low BIZ for their innings played.

One change I have made is that I'm now using the new position adjustment paradigm developed in this thread at Tango's blog. The net effect is to increase the value of skilled infielders (2b, 3b, & ss), and to decrease the value of the center fielders. CF's now have the same defensive value as 2B's & 3B's. C's also get a further boost in this design, whereas 1B's get knocked down a tad. This seems to be more reflective of the current state of thinking of how to rank the different positions than the old scheme. We're talking about a few runs over the course of the season, though, so this doesn't make a big difference.

I've had the chance to sit in front of a TV the last few nights and grade papers while the White Sox battled it out with the Tigers & the Twins. I somehow have a very hard time rooting for the Sox, at least when Griffey's not at the plate. But it sure was fun to see him celebrating after they made it into the playoffs tonight. And it's been nice to see Griffey able to contribute, be it today's perfect throw from the outfield, or the walk yesterday to load the bases for Ramirez.

I wonder what it's like for the guy. He's playing a much diminished role with them vs. what he's accustomed to in Cincinnati & Seattle, center field bizzaroness notwithstanding. And he's only been there two months now, so he's essentially a rent-a-player--not a role he's experienced before. I almost felt bad for him when he left the game for a pinch runner today after his double. But at the same time, that's probably how he should be used these days, as Anderson's game-halting catch so clearly demonstrated (Griffey wouldn't have made that play).

I'm sure it's not as sweet as when his Mariners made it to the playoffs back in the '90's. But I'm also sure it feels good to finally be going to a playoff series. I certainly will keep trying to root for them to go all the way.
-j

Reds RHP prospect Scott Carroll tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, and will have to sit out the first 50 games of next year's season. Doug Gray broke the news. Here's what I posted in response:

Update:
Bumped up from the comments (er...comment), Doug brings news that there may be something else going on here:
The wikipedia article I linked above also mentions that hCG can be a tumor marker. As a biologist, I wish I knew more about this stuff...but I'm not an endocrine guy. I work on the evolution and neurophysiology of insect eyes. So I'm not going to be of much help.

Hopefully everything will check out health-wise for Scott...but if something like this can be medically demonstrated to be the cause of his positive test, I would think that the league would have to release Scott from this suspension. If Doug's quote is right and the majority of minor league suspensions have been for this particular marker--and they indicate something other than drug use--then MiLB may need to modify their testing parameters. I'd much rather err on the side of false negatives than have false positives messing up peoples' careers.

At the same time, if this test helps Scott catch a serious medical problem early, then there's something positive that can come out of this situation as well. We'll see what happens.

I was asked to contribute to this week's roundtable discussion at StatSpeak. Leading up to my appearance there, they had roundtable discussions with people like Will Carroll, J.C. Bradbury, and Paul freaking DePodesta. So, yeah...this week has to be kind of a letdown for the StatSpeak crew, eh? :)

In all seriousness, thanks again to Pizza Cutter for the chance to contribute.

Anyway, click here to see the discussion. We trade views on advances in baseball research, what new data we need to advance fielding statistics, whether one should bring back an ace early for a particularly important game, overlooked players, and what to make of the Astros' recent surge.

I've updated the total value estimates for 2008 players. You can read about all the methods in this series of posts.

Features:

Note: I've heard a report that someone was getting server errors trying to access this spreadsheet. If you do, please let me know, because I haven't been able to replicate it and want to know how widespread the issue is.

A huge thanks to Joel Luckhaupt, who used his visual basic wizardly to automate the population of my makeshift spreadsheets. Thanks also to the Hardball Times, who supplied most of the data.

Current MVP Rankings
American League

Sizemore still has a commanding lead, though A-Rod is holding his own despite 100 fewer PA's. If you value rate stats, you probably go with A-Rod. But if you count playing time, as replacement-level statistics do, Sizemore is the clear choice. Similar offensive contributions, and excellent defense at a premium position.

National League
Chipper's really fallen behind, but that's due not so much to him taling off (though he has a bit) as Albert Pujols going all ridiculous on us. Berkman's still hanging in there, but Albert continues to be the standard against which all hitters are judged. Doesn't hurt that he's such a good defensive first basemen.

Current Cy Young Rankings
American League
I opted to sort this time based on FIP-Runs, which is a defense-independent indicator of pitching performance. But, at least in the AL, it doesn't really matter. This is a two-horse race between Halliday and Lee, as it has been most of the year. Lee's rate stats are a bit more impressive, while Halliday has continued his typical workload and thrown more innings.

National League