Okay, Okay, I'll Tell You Who Should Be MVP

On a per-game basis, the best -- which is to say, most valuable -- everyday players in MLB this year were obscure gentlemen named Trout and Harper. But this isn't the Per Game Award.

A Mr. Julio Daniel Martinez was the NL's best batman with an 1,107 OPS, but JD played half his season for Detroit in the other league.  Besides, that's his entire toolbelt. He doesn't run, play the field or make a mean casserole. (Maybe the casserole's great, but it's not like any of the voters are benefiting from it.)

A bevy of hurlers rate high on the Wins Against Replacement scale, but who knows what that means? Comparing the apples of Mr. Kluber with the cantaloupes of Mr. Judge is like, well, you get it.

How About Pablo Sandoval?
Pablo Sandoval could make a claim on the MVP for his contributions to the Yankees and Tigers this season. First, he skimmed $95 million from John Henry's Red Sox war chest before finally departing with an addition-by-subtraction resume. Then, reunited with the league-worst Giants he contributed the winning hit in Game 162 that gave Detroit the top draft pick. What's the WAR for those two accomplishments? (Guy is so fat he can only play Seek.)

That leaves us with slim pickens, and I don't mean this guy.

Don't Judge Me for My AL Pick
In the AL, the long and the short of it is Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge...er, well, the other way around. Judge brings more thunder, Altuve more lightning. Altuve gets my vote for two reasons: 1. As a speedster and middle infielder he did more things to help his team and 2. He didn't disappear in August. Yank Aaron will have to settle for the Rookie of the Year and a slew of records.

In the NL, good freakin' luck. If WAR is your thing, Baseball Reference has Max Scherzer, Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Votto and Nolan Arenado alll close.  WAR, what is it good for? Not nothing, but it includes a defensive component whose precision is still insufficient to fly an airplane. Arenado is a great player, but between all the credit for defense and relatively little adjustment for playing in Colorado, I'm dubious. He performed so much worse on the road that I really can't consider him.

Scherzer is my guy as a Nationals fan, but I believe in letting pitchers vie for the Cy Young and sparing the MVP discussion from impossible comparisons. Numerous others have a case -- Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Pham, Anthony Rendon, Kris Bryant, Charlie Blackmon, Trea Turner, Marcel Ozuna, and so on.  But there are chinks in all their armor -- mostly that they didn't perform as well as Stanton and Votto.

In the NL, Go Dead Red
Once again it comes down to the on-base machine versus the beast, and once again, I think the safety-maker is the better player.

All due respect to Giancarlo and his 59 bombs, but Vottomatic also made it rain regularly (36 homers) while leading the league in walks, on base percentage, OPS and OPS plus. And the way he zagged while all of baseball zigged -- reducing his strikeouts and increasing his ground ball rate, that's just such genius. Votto is a mere first baseman, but one of the league's best with the leather and he's a surprisingly good runner considering he needs two green lights to cross the street.

In short, Votto is an intellectual with a military haircut. I dig those kinds of guys.

Maybe You Differ
You punched out the chad for Judge and Stanton? Or Kluber and Bryant? Sure, why not? There's a fair amount of tossing up this season. My picks are Altuve and Votto.

There are no sighs in the Cy races. Kluber pretty clearly caught and passed Chris Sale in August and September. Scherzer outlasted Kershaw and Strasburg. I'd love to see them meet in the World Series.

Zigging When Everyone Else Zags

The story of the 2017 MLB season is the launch angle. Batters have discovered that swinging hard, and upwards, yields a few more strikeouts and a lot more home runs.

And so we have record numbers of both.

The result? Forty MLB batters sport SLG percentages of .500 or better, double the number two years ago. Nineteen sluggers blasted 30+ homers in 2015. We've got 35 this year with 28 or more and three weeks left in the season.

Twenty-plus home run hitters this season include such luminaries as:

Javier Baez,
Nick Castellanos,
Didi Gregorious (pictured left),
Marwin Gonzalez,
Scooter Gennett,
Brett Gardner,
Tim Beckham,
Ryon Healy,
Francisco Lindor
Yonder Alonso,
Travis Shaw.
Not to mention a host of rookies.


The 30+ club includes Steven Souza and Justin Smoak.

This is a collection of middle infielders, speed merchants, fourth outfielders and guys who never hit 20 homers in their entire Minor League careers. 

And bucking this trend are two veteran sluggers having among the best seasons of their careers.

First. let's take Colorado Rockies' cornerman Mark Reynolds. If ever a player was designed for Denver, it's this big fly wind machine. Reynolds has been a three true outcomes hitter his whole career, hitting 30+ home runs in his full seasons while fanning more than 200 times.

As his batting average dipped into Mendoza territory 2013-2015, Reynolds' batting prowess slipped below average, a bad place for a fielder whose best position is DH. In Denver, it stood to reason that all the fly balling would pay off.

Au contraire, mon ami.  With the Rockies, Reynolds has reduced his flyball tendencies by 20% and hit 11% more ground balls, just as the league has switched tactics. The result: he has goosed his batting average by 60 points while adding back a few walks.

Make no mistake, Mark Reynolds is still a slugger. His slammed his 29th today, a grand slam that kept the Rockies three games ahead in the NL Wild Card race. He's just less of an all-or-nothing hitter.

Vottomatic
Joey Votto never had to worry about all that. One of the game's most intellectual and effective hitters, Votto has five times led the NL in OBP, with a .427 lifetime mark. Votto possesses Hall of Fame-caliber power, average and plate discipline, but evidently decided this year that swinging too hard was robbing him of results. His OPS sank all the way down to .985 last season.

So in 2017, Votto has cut down on his swing, particularly with two strikes. It's bizarre to watch a 6'2", 220-pound slugger grip the bat mid-tape, particularly in this all-or-nothing era, but the results speak for themselves: he's reduced his strikeout rate nearly in half.  Better yet, it doesn't appear Joey is any less Vottomatic, as his 34 homers attest.

Going against the grain has probably saved Mark Reynolds' starting job and kept Joey Votto in the MVP discussion. It will be interesting to see how many batters take a page from either of their books next year.

Joey Votto and the Idiocy of Umpires

With limited instant replay reviews, baseball now has a formula for overturning all kinds of missed umpire calls on the field. Managers can challenge whether fouls balls were called fair, runners were safe, catches were made, and fly balls cleared the fence.

Every case contains within it the implicit recognition that umpires make mistakes, and that getting the call correct is paramount.

Calls cannot be challenged that involve judgment, or that if overturned would cause havoc. For example, if a ball was originally ruled foul, there is no going back and re-running the play if the videotape reveals that it was actually fair (except in the case of a home run.)

There is one glaring and utterly indefensible exception: balls and strikes. The most common and impactful missed call of all is the ball-strike because it alters the tenor of games. Research shows that the strike zone has been expanding over the past few years -- mostly at the lower end -- and with it scoring has contracted. Batters must now defend a larger zone than ever, and must adjust their calculations depending on the whim and idiosyncrasies of the given arbiter on the given day.

What's more, the ball-strike call is not simply a judgment; it appears to be a personal statement. Some umpires are known to have low strike zones, others like the outside pitch, etc., as if strike zones are just a matter of style and preference.

All of which led to this recent outrage by umpire Tim Welke, who chafed at Joey Votto's constant chirping about ball-strike calls, refused to grant him time, and then ran Votto when he complained to his dugout. In fact, replays showed that Votto had reason to gripe about several strike calls that were clearly out of the zone. What made matters worse in this case is that Welke escalated the dispute with his unjustifiable refusal to allow Votto to take time and blow off steam.

All this could be cured with existing technology that can accurately pinpoint the swing-worthiness of every pitch. It is available to television broadcasts, so that everyone watching the game at home knows how embarrassingly often home plate umpires gack up the call, or has imposed his personal preferences over the rule book.

Calling pitches correctly is unfathomably difficult. The ball is small and the strike zone dependent on the size of the batter. Pitches are spinning, moving at 90 mph or more and changing planes often in two directions at once. Research by Scott Lindholm of SB Nation shows that umpires miss the pitch call about 15% of the time, or about 40 times per game. How is that acceptable?

It's long past time to replace umpire decisions with existing technology that that can accurately, definitively and instantaneously determine balls and strikes. It would eliminate the griping that led Joey Votto to request time, Tim Welke to pout and both of them to engage in juvenile pyrotechnics. Not to mention a wholly unwarranted two-game suspension for the Cincinnati star.
 

The Best Player Not to Make This Year's All-Star Team

After exercising my first 70 (of 105) All-Star franchises, I initiated a thought experiment about who would eventually wind up in Cincinnati and, more to the point, who wouldn't. Who would be the best player left off the All-Star roster?

It didn't take long before a name popped so far out it couldn't be ignored. The research ended there, less exhaustive than exhausted, so take it with an extra grain of salt. 

It appears that only injury or a bizarre desire on the manager's part to select five first baseman will punch Freddie Freeman's Mid-Summer Classic ticket in 2015. Freeman is having a fine season -- a .327 True Average, the best of his career, along with solid defense at the cold corner. It doesn't appear that will suffice.

Ahead of Freeman are a pair of MVP candidates, the Dbacks' Paul Goldschmidt and Cubs' Anthony Rizzo, and two veteran stars, the Reds' Joey Votto and Dodgers' Adrian Gonzalez. The quartet rank second, third, ninth and tenth in OPS in the NL this year. With Votto playing at home, he's a nearly sure bet to be selected, while Gonzalez's offensive-subduing home field and Gold Glove credentials argue for him.

That leaves Freeman fifth for three -- maybe four at most -- spots on the All-Star roster.

In a way, it's a microcosm of Freeman's career. A milquetoast guy on a middling team, Freeman has demonstrated broad excellence (a lifetime .304 TAv) but has rarely stood out. He's hit .300+ once and knocked in 100 runs once in his five-year career. He's never bopped more than 23 homers, stolen bases or claimed many Web gem moments. He's a steady-Eddie kind of player, the type who rarely earns much notice.

So he appears to be the best player who won't make this year's All-Star team. Of course, that might change once my research moves beyond first base.

Addendum: Another reason Freeman might not make the All-Star team is that he's now on the shelf with an injury. I don't think it was true when I wrote this, but if it was, it was a new development that hadn't filtered down to me yet.

Votto You Waiting For?

Last season, Reds first baseman Joey Votto suffered through his worst season, registering his first sub-.400 on base percentage (.390) and first sub-.900 OPS (.799) since 2008. For the first time since his rookie coffee cup, he added fewer than three wins (1.9) to his team, roughly the equivalent of an ordinary starter. 

Of course, Votto missed 100 games last season due to a quad strain, and played hurt during the other 62. Even so, he swung a mean stick and was meaner still when he didn't swing it.

Baseball research shows that the one skill that never goes away -- well maybe not the one, but one of the few -- is the ability to take a walk, which the big Canadian does in spades. While injury sapped his ability to hit for average or power last year, he still coaxed one free pass every five-and-a-half times he came to the plate.

Votto says he's healthy now, which means, look out. At age 31, his skills might be starting to wane, but here's his last full season:

.305/.435/.491, 56% above league average, 6.4 WAR and a sixth place MVP finish.

It's likely wasted on Cincinnati, which curiously jettisoned its two best pitchers for nothing immediate in return during the off-season. But for all those baseball fans who forgot about Votto, or just never appreciated him, it'll be nice to see him back in form.

The NL MVP: Stolen By A Pirate

Yadier Molina is the Adonis of backstops. He commands the defense, terrorizes baserunners, and frames pitches. He rakes like an outfielder -- .316 BA with 55 extra base hits.  And as a catcher, he's well-nigh irreplaceable. (His understudy hit .205 with an OPS 300 points lower.)

The green eye shades, however, don't consistently hold Molina's skill set in high regard. Some fielding metrics even ding him for his glove work. None of the valuation systems seem to credit him appropriately for his prowess at the bat despite squatting for 1300 innings a year. Consequently, you would not find Molina's name on the short list of MVP candidates in Seamhead Land. Baseball Prospectus credits Molina with 4.0 wins against replacement. Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference have him at 5.4 and 5.7 respectively.

This seems preposterous for a player who plays a role in literally every single pitch, and it leaves us all wondering how else to value him. Compare him, for example, to teammate Matt Carpenter, who covered second and third base while playing almost every Cardinal game and compiling a .325/.391/.486 line, with a league-leading 55 doubles. Carpenter's 41 point-advantage in OPS over 25 more games are certainly a yawning gap, particularly from a player staffing a low-offense position. Carpenter is credited with about one extra win compared to Molina.

When considering the MVP the one and only consideration should be how much value the player brought to his team. There is one statistic, variously called Wins Against Replacement (WAR) or Wins Against Replacement Player (WARP), that is designed to compile all the elements -- on-base ability, power-hitting, baserunning, defense -- multiplied by the level of competition and the offensive proclivities of the relevant ballparks, all while accounting for replacement level at the player's position. On that last item, a first baseman or right fielder is held to a higher hitting standard than a shortstop or catcher.

We could all take the day off if that one statistic picked the crop, bundled it and carried it off to market. But defensive statistics are still crawling and learning their ABCs; we have limited faith in them. So let's view the candidates through the statistical lens of offense, and season the results with defense.

Matt Carpenter, 2B/3B      .325/.391/.486,   .877 OPS   66.4 VORP   good defensive flexibility
Andrew McCutchen, CF    .317/.404/.508,  .912 OPS   65.0 VORP   highlight-reel defense
Shin-soo Choo, CF            .286/.424/.464   .888 OPS   63.1 VORP    a RF masquerading as a CF
Joey Votto, 1B                 .306/.436/.492,  .928 OPS   55.8 VORP    Gold Glove defense
Paul Goldschmidt, 1B       .302/.401/.553,  .954 OPS   53.0 VORP    superb defense
Jayson Werth, RF            .318/.398/.535   .933 OPS    44.8 VORP   average outfielder
Buster Posey, C                .294/.369/.451   .820 OPS   44.1 VORP    good D at key position
Yadier Molina, C               .319/.359/.477,  .836 OPS   40.6 VORP   elite D at key position
Freddie Freeman, 1B      .319/.396/.502   .898 OPS   39.3 VORP    good defense
Carlos Gomez, CF            .325/.391/.486   .877 OPS   38.7 VORP   superb D at key position


(There is WAR/WARP for pitchers, which filters out defense and examines the underlying performance of the thrower. It's a slow-moving revolution in which you should not invest short-term money.)

There are a lot of legitimate contenders here and reasonable people may pick different names for the top of their ballot. Goldschmidt owns the slugging, OPS, HR and RBI titles for 2013. Votto and Choo are 1-2 in OBP and should be expecting Valentine's chocolates from Brandon Phillips. Carpenter's ability to cover the corner gives manager Mike Matheny options. Posey and Molina have value that seems to elude the system.

But the best MVP catch is The Cutch, Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen. He hits, runs (27 of 37 steals) and flashes leather. He's the key cog in the Bucs' playoff push, turning it on (1.015 OPS) in the last two months. For his mix of skills McCutchen is also the NL leader in WAR, worth 8.2 wins against replacement, a full win better than anyone else.

Before departing, a shout out to three star performers who weren't on the field enough. Hanley Ramirez and David Wright have their bodies to blame; Yasiel Puig languished in Chattanooga for 40 games. Extrapolated to a full season, that trio would rank 1-2-3 respectively in the MVP race.
Ramirez, the Dodger shortstop, posted an OPS over 1000 and was worth five wins in just 86 games. And remember how the league would catch up to Puig? Well, it's catching its breath instead. He ended the season at .321/.392/.537 and 42 extra base hits in less than 2/3rds of a season. Wait until he learns the game...

A Kick In the Shin: The Most Under-rated Player in Baseball

He's a leadoff hitter with a .417 OBP (second in the NL) and plenty of pop too -- 14 homers and 26 doubles/triples. His OPS of .883 is 40% better than average and 10th best in the league. He gets on base even more often -- half the time -- in high leverage situations, like late in close games. 

He's worth four wins to his team at the plate, fifth in the league, and staffs the critical center field position. Not surprisingly, he's third in the league in runs scored, thanks also to a great number three hitter and good cleanup guy.

He's no flash-in-the-pan either: during his nine year career, he's hit .289/.387/.465, 33% above average.

And yet, he wasn't even seriously considered for the All-Star team and isn't on anyone's MVP preview list. You probably don't know anything about him. Shin-soo Choo may be the most under-rated player in Major League Baseball.

It may be that the low-key Korean native has suffered an identity crisis from playing in Cleveland and Cincinnati, two Ohio cities with small Korean populations. It could be that his skills don't light up the BA-HR-RBI stat meter that uneducated baseball fans still use. It could be that teammates like superstar Joey Votto and flashy Brandon Phillips have overshadowed him.

Whatever the reason, Choo would have to be on your short list of MVP candidates so far, along with Votto, David Wright, Buster Posey, Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutcheon, Matt Carpenter, Yadier Molina and Carlos Gomez.

It's worth noting that nowhere near that list is Phillips, the walking highlight reel powered by joie de vivre and accompanied by a decent stick. But the suggestion by an MLB-employed "analyst" (who shall remain nameless to spare him further embarrassment) that Phillips is the NL MVP so far because of his league-leading RBI total is so utterly out-of-touch that he should be relieved of duties based on that one statement alone. (Ironically, the offending analyst was a reliever when he played ball.)

Phillips led the league in RBIs -- he doesn't anymore -- because Choo and Votto occupy the basepaths before him. Phillips himself is hitting just .261/.313/.403, which, though highly respectable for a second baseman, is below average overall. Not only does he enjoy the most RBI opportunities in the league by a wide margin, he also benefits disproportionately from runners in scoring position. Phillips is a laudable sixth in the league in converting those opportunities, but that's hardly MVP material. He's been worth about a win-and-a-half to the Reds, small potatoes compared to Choo.

It's tempting determine player value by this method:
1. Find an everyday performer on a good team with a high batting average and big home run totals
2. Season with steals and fielding
3. Factor in his position.

That would make us feel like we'd covered the bases. You're likely to find a good player that way, but our tools are so much more refined and thoughtful, and easily available. They help us determine that a quiet guy like Shin-soo Choo is far more valuable than his tweeting, fun-king teammate, Brandon Phillips.

Alburquerque in Toledo . . .and Other Tales

Alburquerque Now In Toledo
After uncorking 13 walks and six wild pitches in 14 innings, Tiger reliever Al Albuquerque has been optioned to the Triple-A club in central Ohio. 

Can't wait for Houston Street to get traded to the Astros.

Brandon Phillips Leads League in RBI
After 40 games, Brandon Phillips leads the NL in RBIs with 36. Has he got some RBI magic or is he swimming in opportunities? 

Yes.

Overall, Phillips is hitting just .286 with seven home runs. But he's delivering at a .450 clip with runners in scoring position. 

Which is often. Phillips hits fourth in the Reds' lineup behind Shin-soo Choo (.452 OBP) and Joey Votto (.462 OBP).

Phillips is unlikely to renew his clutch-hitting subscription. But his opportunities club card is good for the entire season as long as Choo and Votto remain in the lineup. Barring injury, "Dat Dude" should tally his first 100-RBI season. And then he should take Choo and Votto out to dinner.

Ah, Choo
Speaking of Choo, he's lucky to be playing in this era. The 30-year-old right fielder is exactly the kind of heads-up five-tool player whose body of work was largely invisible in the pre-sabermetric days.

Since he began playing regularly for the Indians in 2008, Choo has averaged .293 with 18 homers and 73 RBI. But today we know that only scratches the surface.

Shin-soo Choo is an on-base machine who has lots of gap power. His .293/.389/.477 performance with an average of 17 steals at a 77% success rate makes him worth 34% more than the average hitter over that five-plus years. He's been worth 23 wins against replacement with the bat during that time, about four-and-a-half per year. That's perennial all-star territory.

By way of comparison, Ryan Howard's  best five consecutive years with the stick were worth 18.3 wins, despite pounding 229 homers and bringing home 680 runs. Not to pick on Howard: Joe Carter's best six years added the same number of wins as Howard's five. His 180 homers, 652 RBI and 142 SB belied a .311 OBP. Carter got Hall of Fame votes.

Ten years ago, players like Shin-soo Choo were dismissed as complimentary parts and denied credit for the RBIs accumulated by the batters behind them. Today, we recognize all of Choo's attributes and more fully appreciate him. And when the baseball writers catch up to the rest of us, they'll finally elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame.

Bud No Weiser 
During baseball games, Budweiser is proudly advertising their new "bowtie" shaped can. They are officially out of ideas.

All Or Nothing In Cincinnati Lineup
Cincinnati has struggled to score runs on occasion this year despite Votto, Choo, Phillips and Jay Bruce. If you're wondering why, here's the rest of the lineup and their OPS (an average starter has about a .750 OPS):

Todd Frazier, .693
Zack Cozrt, .573
Devin Mesoraco, .660
Xavier Paul, .792

And the first two guys off the bench, Chris Heisey and Ryan Hannigan, have OPS in the 400s.

With the starting core and first rate pitching to start and finish games, the Reds are a playoff threat. Another bat could really help.

Fact of the Day
Fox Sports mentioned this on their national broadcast: In 14 years as a Major Leaguer, 10 as a fulltime starter, Bronson Arroyo has never missed a start. 

A quintessentially average pitcher throughout his career, (lifetime 104 ERA+) Arroyo's durability and innings consumption have tremendous value to his team. At $11.5 million, his salary is right in the ballpark.

Votto Hitter

"Can you believe all the money Joey Votto got?" asked a friend, a Braves fan. "Joey Votto! Is he really that good?"

I can understand his confusion. Votto's traditional stats sing a nice little ditty, but not an aria worthy of the bouquet of Benjamins the Reds have bestowed upon him. Last season, Votto hit .309 with 29 HR and 103 RBI. That's not superstar yo.

This year, Votto is hitting .360, but he's only got 10 HR and 38 RBI. Is that any better than, say, Carlos Gonzalez of the Rockies, who's at .318, 14 HR 45 RBI?

Well, my Toyota Yaris and a Lexus both have four wheels. The Lexis has more headroom but my Yaris gets better gas mileage. So they're about even in quality, right?

Seeking better information yields more accurate answers. Votto leads the NL with 25 doubles, 46 walks, a .480 on base percentage and a .640 slugging percentage (compared to an estimable .383 and .599 for CarGo.) According to Baseball-Reference, Votto is the best hitter in MLB so far, leading baseball in OPS, OPS+, batting runs added, batting wins added, offensive wining percentage, wins above replacement and so on.

That's because the ability to achieve safe passage to first base via plate discipline travels in the blind spot of batting average. Doubles and triples hide behind the curtains in home runs' room. And RBIs -- need we flog that horse carcass again? They're as relevant as a vice president.

It was less dramatic last year, but Votto still led the league in walks and on base percentage, and hit 56% better than average. And of course, he was so good in 2010 that even the baseball writers voted him MVP. On top of that, he's a Gold Glove quality fielder.

So yeah, Joey Votto's really that good. Just don't ask the Triple Crown stats to tell you that.

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Too Much Too Soon for Too Long

Back in the days when I had time to play Rotisserie Baseball, my better-looking but balder partner and I liked to sandbag other teams with high-cost players, husband our resources until the bidding cooled off, gobble up value picks and then spend lavishly on one or two players who particularly tickled our fancy. (Usually they were top players at positions of scarcity.) It was a pretty successful strategy.

The San Francisco Giants may be engaged in the same dance, albeit with a million times as many dollars.

The Goliaths inked pitcher Matt Cain to an astounding five-year, $117.5 million deal Monday that doesn't kick in until after this season and that can't, by any reasonable measuring tool, be justified. It's too much money for too long for a guy who isn't even the ace of the staff. 

Make no mistake, Matt Cain is a stud. He's thrown 190 innings in each of his first six years, posting park-aided ERAs between 2.88 and 3.76 in all but his rookie campaign. Because he gets less support from his hitters than from his jock strap, his W-L record belies his excellence, but he is among the 10 best hurlers in the NL.

The problem is, early studliness does not ensure future results. Some inning eaters keep gobbling, like Greg Maddux and Mark Buehrle, and some push away from the buffet, like Johan Santana and Mike Hampton. That's why in the old days, say 2010, long contracts requiring teams to take big risks involved smaller payouts. 

But there may be a method to the Big Men's madness. If the they can lock down ace Tim Lincecum with another mega millions outlay, they will have the entire young core of their roster signed or under team control for half a decade. That includes starter Madison Bumgarner, catcher Buster Posey, cornerman Pablo Sandoval and promising first baseman Brandon Belt. If a couple of their farm assets ripen on schedule, the G-Men have a championship window that is closed without Cain and Lincecum.

Such justification is an empty bucket in Cincinnati, where the Reds re-upped Joey Votto for a decade at $225 million guaranteed -- and it doesn't even commence until after the next two seasons, when anything could happen, like their slugging first baseman blowing out his Achilles on the last play of the season just before the cash machine starts pumping.

Again, Joey Votto is a monster, the best player the Reds have seen so far (he's only 28) since Joe Morgan. Really. He hits for average, gets on base, slugs, flashes leather, runs reasonably well, plays with hustle and humility, shares his hair product with the guys and tears up at Hallmark commercials.*  But for a bout of depression that sidelined him for three weeks three years ago, he's been relatively healthy.

(*Or he doesn't, whichever.)

The Reds were right to seek to retain his services for the foreseeable future but they rushed into a deal they could have made a year or two later after assuring themselves that Votto didn't turn into a pumpkin at midnight of his sixth season. They are shelling out the superstar Benjamins, assuming all the risk and accepting the late-year over-payments without any concessions from the player. It's almost impossible to detect downside for Votto unless he reprises the second half of Barry Bonds' career, and even then he has $264 million of career earnings to salve his wounds.

Teams need to tell their players that top dollar and long guarantees are either-or propositions. If the club is going to accept all the risk, it has to get a discount. If they pay market rate, they don't have to make a long commitment. Our fantasy team may have spent $26 on Miguel Tejada, but we could throw him back into the auction the following year.

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NL MVP: Gotta Have A Votto Love

That the prime candidates for 2010 NL MVP all toiled for contenders should not lull you into the cognitive weakness of assuming that “leading his team to the pennant” is a credible skill.

The four legitimate contenders clubbed their way to stardom for the Rockies, Cardinals, Padres and Reds. They deserve consideration not because their teams won bunches of games but because they personally contributed at the highest levels.  But first, a word about a young outfielder who is not a viable candidate.

If batting average, steals and outfield versatility float your boat, Carlos Gonzalez is your coxswain. The Venezuelan lefty hit .336 to pace the league, swiped 26 bases and deployed variously to all three outfield positions. But Cargo didn’t work the count at an MVP level, leaving his more relevant on base percentage at .376, 37^th best in baseball, six spots behind Chipper Jones and his .265 BA.

Moreover, Cargo was a thin air demon, managing just a .289/.322/.453 line with a mere eight of his 34 dingers away from Denver. Most batters perform better when there’s no hotel involved, but those splits suggest that Cargo’s a good hitter exploiting a very favorable condition. Nix!

Anyway, there’s a superior candidate from Colorado: shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Tulo hit .315/.381/.568 with more normal platoon splits. While those numbers don’t match Cargo’s they tower over the average shortstop’s. Whereas Gonzalez cooled just as the Rockies ran out of steam at season’s end, Tulo kept the engine stoked, accumulating a 1.127 OPS in the last month and banging 12 of his 27 homers.

In fact, Tulowitzki’s greater MVP competition is another Gonzalez, Masochist of the Year Adrian Gonzalez. San Diego’s first baseman has the dubious distinction of playing his home games in the Grand Canyon, surrounded by a lineup of replacement-level hitters. That he was able to produce a .298/.393/.511 line and 31 homers while carrying the entire Padre offense on his back is remarkable. His road record -- .315 .402 .578 with 20 homers – suggests that Petco seriously kiboshes his power. 

That's all very nice, but now let's talk about the National League's Most Valuable Player.

There is a pair of first baseman whose performances require no explanations. Albert Pujols and Joey Votto delivered seasons superior in nearly every way to the above-named. Pujols (.312/.414/.596 with 14 steals in 18 attempts) and Votto (.324/.424/.600 with 16 steals in 21 attempts) sufficiently outpaced Tulowitzki to overwhelm his added value as a shortstop, and simply overwhelm the accomplishments of the Messers Gonzalez.

While Votto is a perfectly perfunctory first baseman, Pujols’s defensive acumen shaves off Votto’s offensive edge. Both players lit it up in August and early September, when Cincinnati pulled away from St. Louis, and both play in parks that don’t much favor offense or defense. Pujols stayed healthy for all but two games and delivered his excellence in 52 more plate appearances.

So why is Joey Votto my MVP? You can divine meaning from the sixth decimal place if you like, but basically the two are even. Votto, though, carried the Reds’ offense. Whereas Pujols had a trusty sidekick in Matt Holliday (.922 OPS) with support from Colby Rasmus and Ryan Ludwick for two-thirds of the season, Votto’s supporting cast was a revitalized Scott Rolen (.855 OPS) and the likes of Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs.

Votto gets my vote by a split hair over the best player in the game. If the baseball writers split the hair differently, that’s fine. Any other vote is a Ricky Riccardo – they got a lot a ‘splainin’ to do.

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Getting On the JV Team

The winner of this year's Ben Zobrist Award for the best player who came out of nowhere will be Joey Votto. This is a trick selection. Just because you're not familiar with him doesn't mean the big-swinging, 27-year-old lefty isn't already an accomplished Major League hitter.

The Reds' first baseman, Votto has been pounding Major League pitching for two years and a coffee break. His .310/.388/.536 resume may be (Great American) Ballpark-aided, but 53 homers and 77 doubles in a thousand at-bats is hard to argue with.

Votto enters his third full season ready to explode. With a couple of full campaigns under his belt, with an increasing walk rate and with an improving team around him, the big Canadian is channeling Justin Morneau in the Queen City. His .414 OBP in an injury-trimmed season last year suggests a full year of Votto could catapult him into the MVP discussion in '10.

If that happens, you'll hear of him. And you'll wonder, where did this guy come from? Well, a pretty good place.
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