Stuff You Didn't Know

Padres Production
...and since that last post, the Padres have scored 10, 9 and 5, all in wins over the Marlins. That means they've scored nearly a quarter of their season's runs in a single three-game series. With the weekend's outburst, San Diego batters have doubled their offensive value over replacement and no longer own the lowest team batting average or on base percentage. Rah.

Marlins Home Cooking 
The Miami Marlins are the best team in baseball (17-5) at home. They are the worst team in baseball (3-13) on the road. Their team OPS is 220 points higher at home. Here are their batting splits:

Player                          BA home  BA road
C   Jarrod Saltalamachia .348    .146
3B  Casey McGehee        .346     .224
OF  Giancarlo Stanton    .354     .217
SS  Adeiny Hechavarria  .316      .214
OF Christian Yelich        .282      .241
OF Marcel Ozuna           .308      .203
1B Garret Jones            .250      .236
2B Derek Dietrich          .263     .206
OF Reed Johnson          .360      .231
UT Jeff Baker               .216     .150

It's the same for the pitching staff, which has a .261 ERA at home; 5.01 on the road.

Bad news, Florida: the Marlins play their next eight games on the West Coast, none of whose cities are Miami.

Enjoying The Majors Very Machi
Spherical Venezuelan righty Jean Machi is up to the Bigs with the Giants for the third time. He should stick for awhile; in 77 innings this season and last he's whiffed 68 and walked just 17 en route to a .234 ERA. At age 32, Machi has spent 14 years in pro ball, played for nine Minor League teams and been released three times. That Major League minimum of $505,000 roughly doubles his lifetime earnings.

Joey Bats Really Well
Jose Bautista came to the plate four times today and returned to the dugout four times. In Toronto's 38th game, it's the first time Joey Bats hadn't reached safely in one way or another. Coming into the game he was batting .295 but leading the league in walks, leading to a .440 OBP and the league lead in OPS.

The Price Is Wrong
It's been a tough start for Rays lefty David Price. The Cy Young laureate leads the AL in hits allowed and rocks a 4.53 ERA. With 58 punchouts and just six walks, how could that be? Nine home runs is how. He's allowed six walks but nine home runs.  

Krush
Brewers left fielder Khris Davis stands 5'11", weighs 190 pounds and owned 11 home run credits coming into this season. Orioles first baseman Chris Davis goes 6'3" 230 and slammed 86 bombs the last two seasons alone. So far in 2014, Khris has out-homered Chris by double.

Yesterday, Meet Tomorrow
In a bounceback season, Albert Pujols is slugging at a 46 home run pace. Mike Trout, batting just .275, owns twice Albert's wins against replacement. Wait 'til he heats up.

At Home Where They Are
The Cardinals are a disappointing 18-19 and five games out coming into Sunday night's game. But they've played 26 of their 38 games away from Busch Stadium. It's the highest percentage of first 38 games played on the road in MLB history. They play 20 of the next 23 games at home. Let's talk after that.

AL MVP: Pay No Attention to Runs Scored and RBIs

One of the meaty questions entering the 2011 season was how much of his 2010 slugging value Jose Bautista could maintain. The 31-year-old Dominican went from '02 Hyundai to '11 Lexus in his seventh Major League season, pacing the majors with 54 home runs and leaving the Blue Jays to wonder whether a bucket of bolts or a racing car would return for the following year.

Bautista answered that by losing 11 home runs, 21 RBIs . . . and playing even better. He again led the circuit with 43 dingers, raised his batting average 45 points to .305, reached safely a Bondsian 44.7% of the time and terrified the opposition into a league-leading 24 intentional walks. His MLB-tops 1.055 OPS was impressive even for a right-fielder, but Bautista also spotted up at his natural position -- third base -- for 25 games.

Some will cluck at the Blue Jays' win total and Bautista's relatively subdued R and RBI totals (105 and 103), but all three depend on teammates. Bautista knocked himself in more times than anyone else, and he contributed no less to his team's pitching efforts (Toronto was 25th in the majors) than any other everyday player on the MVP ballot. Baseball Reference says Joey Bats provided 8.1 offensive wins, decent defense, and some lineup flexibility because of his aptitude at two positions.

The only real knock against Bautista is that he committed all his mayhem in the first half, tapping out just 12 home runs and a .442 SLG in the final 81 games.

Bautista's top competitor with the bat is Miguel Cabrera. Miggy led the league in hitting (.344) and OBP (.448), and posted a second-best OPS of 1.033, but had all the mobility of a beanbag chair on the bases and at the least-important defensive position. Tie goes to the good-glove third baseman, and it's not even a tie. Baseball Reference says Cabrera's within half a win of offensive value to Bautista, but drops another win behind when considering defense.

Boston's Jacoby Ellsbury is also worth mentioning. After an injury-riddled 2010 and deep concerns about his centerfield defense, the 27-year-old Oregonian nearly doubled his career totals in doubles and RBI and smashed 32 home runs, 12 more than in his previous four years combined. His .321/.376/.552 can't hold a candle to the above-mentioned, but at his position, Ellsbury was nearly as irreplaceable. Nevertheless, even accounting for his position and his refined glovework (much better routes on flyballs), Ellsbury is an honorable mention candidate.

(Ironically, Ellsbury's best season by far came at the price of his greatest gift. After swiping 136 bases in 3+ seasons and failing just 24 times, an 85% success rate, his steals total dropped in 2011 to 39 at a 72% rate.)

Two other candidates will be named by the ignorenti. Curtis Granderson posted gaudy runs scored and RBI totals thanks to a stacked Yankee lineup, and his team won the division. He plays a fair center field too. But at .262/.364/.552, the Grandy Man might not even be the MVP of his team (that honor might belong to Robby Cano).

Then there's the elephant in the room: Justin Verlander. I've already paid homage to the AL King of the Hill, but pitchers have their own award and comparing them to everyday players is an apples-to-giraffes enterprise. That explains why the seamheads can't get their stories straight on the Bautista-Verlander matchup: Baseball Reference says it's a tossup; Baseball Prospectus rates Bautista more than two wins better. 

There's another player who merits mention, even though he's not an MVP candidate. The World Series brought Mike Napoli into national focus, but he smacked the ball around all season.  In just 113 games, the C/1B/DH/ pounded 25 doubles and 30 homers, batted .320 and posted a 1.045 OPS. He presented himself at the plate just 432 times, but still managed to accrue six wins of value. He accomplished all this pillowed in the comfort of the Rangers' lineup and The Ballpark in Arlington, so take it all with a grain of salt, but a full season of that would have inserted him into the MVP discussion.

Bottom line: give the Cy to Verlander and the MVP to Bautista and all's right with the American League.

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