Happy Opening Day Eve everybody. Time to show off our powers of prognosticating. First some kudos are in order. Here's how we did last year.

By far the biggest mistake was the Dodgers, who most everybody had winning the NL West, We got totally Pierred. Nobody had the Rockies anywhere close to the playoffs The DBacks and Indians made a lot of people look smart, while the late collapses of the Mets and Brewers hurt a lot.

Two Red Reporters, teb7 and ken,  correctly called 6 of the 8 playoff teams.  teb7 missed on the Brewers and the Padres as a Wild Card. ken missed on the Dodgers and Mets, although he did have the Mets behind the Phillies.

greg456, Alan (young, handsome Alan) and ctnyc all correctly picked the Red Sox to win the World Series. Way to go out on a limb there, fellas. Now on to 2008...

Continue reading this post »

Congrats to Officer Dibble for winning the Red Reporter Fantasy Football league. Despite finishing the regular season with a .500 record, his Vegas Strippers got hot at the right time. This is the second consecutive RR Fantasy Football crown for OD. Dynasty!

He defeated sonant1 in the finals by 1 point. Reggie Wayne's fumble in the Sunday night game was the difference.

Brian B downed MixFMKyle in the third place game. Kyle is on his way to becoming the Atlanta Braves after dominating the regular season for the second straight year with nothing to show for it.

Tomorrow is the long awaited Mitchell Report Day. Rumors abound that the Senator's findings will name 60-80 current and former Major League players. Here's your chance for wild speculation.

The Rules

List ten players, 1 through 10, that you believe will be "named" (mentioned in any pejorative way in the Mitchell Report). You'll receive 10 points if your #1 name is listed, 9 points for #2 and so on (like an NFL confidence pool). As a bonus any former Reds players will result in double points (so ten points if you had Frank Robinson at #6 on your list and he's named).

Note the list of ineligible players below! Any player who has admitted usage, tested positive, or been implicated through some sort of leak is not acceptable. Be creative and show your biases.

Please use this diary only to post your list of 10. For questions or further steroid talk use this one.

And folks, please just scroll quickly to the bottom and make your list. Don't look at other peoples' picks. That would be cheating on a steroid pool, which is way too meta for me to handle. Also no changing your list with 'Reply to'. The deadline is 2:00 PM on Thursday. Good luck!

===Ineligible Players==

Admitted Users (17)
Ken Caminiti - Steroids
Barry Bonds - Steroids
Bobby Estalella - Steroids and hGH
Jason Giambi - Steroids and hGH
Jeremy Giambi - Steroids
Armando Rios - Steroids and hGH
Benito Santiago - Steroids and hGH
Gary Sheffield - Steroids
Jose Canseco - Steroids and hGH
Tom House - Steroids
Wally Joyner - Steroids
Paxton Crawford - Steroids and hGH
Jason Grimsley - Steroids and hGH
Jim Leyritz - hGH
David Segui - hGH
John Rocker - hGH
Paul Byrd - hGH
Implicated Players (29)
Mark McGwire - Steroids
Manny Alexander - Steroids
Chuck Finley - Steroids
Marvin Bernard - Steroids and hGH
Randy Velarde - Steroids
Wilson Alvarez - Steroids and hGH
Bret Boone - Steroids
Ozzie Canseco - Steroids
Juan Gonzalez - Steroids and hGH
Dave Martinez - Steroids
Ivan Rodriguez - Steroids and hGH
Tony Saunders - Steroids and hGH
Miguel Tejada - Steroids
Lenny Dykstra - Steroids and hGH
Dave Hollins - Steroids
Roger Clemens - "PE Drugs"
Andy Pettitte - "PE Drugs"
Brian Roberts - Steroids
Jay Gibbons - Steroids
Gary Matthews Jr. - hGH
Jerry Hairston Jr. - hGH
David Bell - hCG
Darren Holmes - Steroids and hGH
Rick Ankiel - hGH
Troy Glaus - Steroids
Scott Schoeneweis - Steroids
Matt Williams - Steroids and hGH
Jose Guillen - Steroids and hGH
Ismael Valdez - hGH
MLB Posiive Tests (16)
Alex Sanchez - Unknown
Jorge Piedra - Unknown
Agustin Montero - Unknown
Jamal Strong - Unknown
Juan Rincon - Unknown
Rafael Betancourt - Unknown
Rafael Palmeiro - Stanzolol (Steroid)
Ryan Franklin - Unknown
Mike Morse - Unknown
Carlos Almanzar - Unknown
Felix Heredia - Unknown
Matt Lawton - Boldenone (Steroid)
Yusaku Iriki - Unknown
Guillermo Mota - Unknown
Juan Salas - Unknown
Dan Serafini - Unknown
Non-MLB Positive Tests (2)
Termel Sledge - Precursor (Andro)
Derrick Turnbow - Precursor (Andro)
.end
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For the last of these awards diaries I'm breaking format. There's been a lot of consternation here over Aaron Harang's "poor" showing in last year's Cy Young voting (he didn't appear on a single ballot). For my part I've been dismissive of these concerns. The question now is will he get a vote for 2007? The hardware gets handed out on Thursday.

The important thing to remember is each writer only names three pitchers on his or her ballot. I see two locks and a handful of challengers for the Harangatan. The fancy stats are Defensive-independent ERA and Value Over Replacement Pitcher from Baseball Prospectus, and Pitcher Runs Created and Win Shares from The Hardball Times.

Jake Peavy    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    19-6     2.54 2.88 159  223.3 1.06 240 68 13 143  77.0  23
Peavy should win in a landslide. I would be shocked if weren't named on every ballot. He was first in ERA (any way you slice it, although adjusting for park or defense does lessen his lead), first in wins, strikeouts and K-rate, first in Win Shares and he leads in WHIP, VORP and PRC by large margins.  

Brandon Webb  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    18-10    3.01 3.30 156  236.3 1.18 194 72 12 129  66.1  22
The defending champ was second to Peavy in PRC, VORP, WS, Wins and ERA. He led the league in innings, complete games and shutouts. He too should be named on every ballot. He might steal a few first place votes from Peavy because he led his surprise team to the playoffs and because he threw 42 consecutive scoreless innings in a row, challenging Hershiser's record. It should be remembered that despite this amazing feat, his season on the whole still lagged Peavy's by almost any measure. He might get Shannon Stewart love because his team made their move during his streak.

If we assume that these two will be named on every ballot (and I think they should be) that only leaves one spot for Aaron. The contenders:

Brad Penny    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    16-4     3.03 2.99 151  208.0 1.30 135 73  9 108  61.7  21

I think Penny is Harang's stiffest competition. He's third in ERA+, VORP and Win Shares. He won as many games as Harang and his ERA looks very pretty. Harang's advantage comes in his peripherals. He pitched over 20 more innings, struck out many more and walked fewer, thus putting less responsibility on his defense. PRC aknowledges this. Will the voters?  

John Smoltz   ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    14-8     3.11 3.48 137  205.7 1.18 197 47 18 112  56.7  16
Tim Hudson
    16-10    3.33 3.56 128  224.3 1.22 132 53 10 108  59.7  19

Smoltz and Hudson both tallied slightly more VORP than Harang. Timmy was credited with 2 more Win Shares. Smoltz and Harang tied for the league leade in K/BB ratio, but Harang threw 26 more innings. The big key here is that both of their ERA advantages over Harang disappear when we adjust for defense. Is Andruw still that much of a factor?

Roy Oswalt    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
     14-7    3.18 3.26 138  212.0 1.32 154 60 14 110  59.8  18

I still maintain that he's slipping, but he did best Harang in VORP, Win Shares and ERA and its derivatives. And now our candidate:

Aaron Harang  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    16-6     3.73 3.38 125  231.7 1.14 218 52 28 119  53.8  17

The case for Harang as the (at least) third best pitcher in the league: He's a solid third to Peavy and Webb in PRC. His WHIP was 5th in the league but only Peavy's from this group was better (Young, Hamels and Lilly were the others). He was second to Webb in IP, second to Peavy in strikeouts. His strikeout to walk ratio tied for first in the league with Smoltz's. He threw 2 complete games (Webb led with 4).  

The case against Harang as the third best pitcher in the league: He was 7th in the league in VORP (behind every pitcher here). His ERA is really bad amongst this elite group. Before you say GABP, his ERA+ is still last in this group. A better rallying point is the Reds' defense. Harang's DERA jumps the two Braves', is pretty close to Webb's, but still lags Peavy's and Penny's by a good measure. He's sixth in Win Shares, topping only Smoltz. Harang's major problem was giving up home runs. I thought there might be a park effect at work that ERA+ isn't accounting for, but his HR splits are almost identical (15 in 118.2 IP at home, 13 in 113 IP on the road).

I would cast a third place vote for Harang. I think he'll get some this year, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he got shut out again. These were the clear top 7 candidates by my stat-y evaluation, but others could pop up on the ballots. A few votes are usually collected by the top reliever (Saito?) or by a local champion (Hamels, Lilly?)  

The official AL Cy Young winner will be announced November 13th. Here's your chance to sound off. I'm including defensive independent ERA (DERA) from BP, adjusted ERA+, the usual suspects (WHIP, strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed), David Gassko's Pitching Runs Created, pitcher's VORP and THT's Win Shares. Apologies to Roy Halladay, who threw 7 compete games but didn't do an outstanding job of preventing runs, and J.J. Putz, who probably had the best season for a closer.

Josh Beckett  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    20-7      3.27 3.34 145 200.7 1.14 194 40 17 120  58.6  19

He's the win king for what that's worth. He also tossed 4 complete games while anchoring Boston's stellar rotation. Official ballots have to be in at the end of the season so no bonus for playoff heroics.

Erik Bedard   ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    13-5      3.16 3.05 146 182.0 1.09 221 57 19 114  54.9  19

I was going to drop Bedard from this list because he threw 40 fewer innings than most here. But while everyone else's DERA is worse than their actually ERA, his improved significantly to lead the field. He also led the league in strikeout rate. His is the only WHIP in Johan's ballpark.

Fausto Carmona ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    19-8      3.06 3.15 151 215.0  1.21 137 61 16 116  64.0  22    

The youngster ties Lackey for the lead in ERA+. His VORP is just behind teammate Sabathia's. Not a big K guy, but he allowed very few home runs.

Dan Haren      ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    15-9      3.07 3.54 137 222.7  1.21 192 55 24 115  56.4  19

Solid season for Haren, but his pretty ERA doesn't look so hot when you adjust for defense or park. Haren threw 5 complete games.

John Lackey    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    19-9      3.01 3.25 151 224.0  1.21 179 52 18 120  60.7  22

Lackey led the league in ERA and tied for adjusted ERA+ with Carmona.

C.C. Sabathia  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    19-7      3.21 3.35 143 241.0  1.14 209 37 20 131  65.2  24

Sabathia led the league in innings pitched and threw 4 complete games. He leads in all the advanced metrics here, PRC, VORP and WS which warms my cold robotic heart.

Johan Santana  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    15-13     3.33 3.55 130 219.0  1.07 235 52 33 123  57.7  18

A "down" year for Johan, mainly because of the home runs allowed, but he's perineally excellent. Led in WHIP and finished second to Kazmir in strikeouts.

...er, MVP. I'll try to crank out these awards diaries in the coming week before the real hardware is handed out. This one is drained somewhat of its drama. Again I'm looking at AVG/OBP/SLG, OPS+, Win Shares and Runs Created from THT, VORP and WARP1 from BP and JinAZ's fielding translations of the Hardball Times' data (and everyone should check out his recent comparison of the various fielding measures). There's no defense rating for catchers or DHs, and I'll mention the stolen base numbers where applicable.

10 candidates in alphabetical order:

Curtis Granderson
302/361/552 OPS+ 136 RC 112 VORP 67.3 DEF +33.0 WS 26 WARP 10.7 SB/CS 26/1

About a month ago a poster on BBTF pointed out Granderson's 10 most important at bats of the year (based on win probability added). They were all in the 8th or 9th inning, men on base in close games, etc. He was 0-10. This wasn't due to some innate unclutchness, but an inability to hit lefties. Nearly all the at bats were against left specialists. VS R: 337/393/621, VS L 160/225/269. You should never let Granderson beat you in the later innings because a lefty turns him into a very bad player. It will be interesting to see if he improves on this going forward.

This is all my way of needling Zach. Despite the huge platoon split his boy had a tremendous season.

Vladimir Guerrero
324/403/547 OPS+ 147 RC 124 VORP 62.6 DEF -15.4 WS 31 WARP 6.1

Will this be Vlad's last appearance on a list like this? He doesn't steal bases anymore and while he still uncorks that powerful arm occasionally his defense is suffering. He battled injuries to put up a solid offensive year. His perineal MVP-ness is bolstered by the Angels not having any other major offensive threats. Maybe that will change this offseason if they sign a certain somebody.

Ichiro
351/396/431 OPS+ 122 RC 133 VORP 63.5 DEF +33.0 WS 33 WARP 63.5 SB/CS 37/8

Players like Ichiro are always hurt by OPS comparisons, so it's no biggie that he easily brings up the rear in that category. His successful switch to centerfield improves the value of his strong defense. And he's still swiping bags. I'm thinking his skills will add a long tail to his decline phase.

Victor Martinez
301/374/505 OPS+ 127 RC 109 VORP 55.0 WS 31 WARP 7.0

Pretty solid campaign for an Indians team that needed it with Travis Hafner's year long slump. Unfortunately for V Mart another catcher overshadows his performance.

Magglio Ordonez
363/434/595 OPS+ 167 RC 154 VORP 87.8 DEF -4.9 WS 36 WARP 8.6

Second in Win Shares, Runs Created and VORP. This would be an easy choice for MVP in most years (although the Tigers' faltering could hurt him).

David Ortiz
332/445/621 OPS+ 171 RC 136 VORP 86.2 WS 29 WARP 8.2

Yet another year with him near the top of this discussion. Despite his drop in home runs the advance metrics show this to be one of his best years ever.

Carlos Pena
282/411/627 OPS+ 172 RC 117 VORP 68.5 DEF 11.5 WS 30 WARP 9.5

The year's biggest surprise didn't have a starting job coming out of spring training. He finished second in OPS+ and third in WARP. He was the undrafted fantasy baseball MVP, but where will you take him next year?  

Jorge Posada
338/426/543 OPS+ 154 RC 100 VORP 73.4 WS 26 WARP 8.2

Classic late career, contract year resurgance. Strangely his RC is well below many who aren't on this list (Raul Ibanez?) and his WS total ties for last among my contenders. But a 154 OPS+ out of a catcher will always be incredibly valuable.

Alex Rodgriguez
314/422/645 OPS+ 177 RC 160 VORP 96.6 DEF -5.8 WS 39 WARP 11.0 SB/CS 24/4

First in OPS, OPS+, SLG, HR, Runs, RBI, RC, WS, WARP, VORP, adjusted batting runs, batting wins, times on base, power/speed number and a hundred other metrics that haven't been invented yet. His defense wasn't too hot though. It will be interesting if Boras markets him as a shortstop.

Grady Sizemore
277/390/462 OPS+ 122 RC 124 VORP 53.8 DEF -18.9 WS 31 WARP 6.4 SB/CS 33/10

A down year for Grady, but he played 162 games and led the league in plate appearances. There's value in that and the advanced metrics show that. Was his defense really that bad?

On MLB.com's Fantasy 411 podcast they've been talking to Joe Sheehan and Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus for the past week. They got into the Reds one day. It was five minutes in a two hour show so I thought I'd just include a transcript. If you want to listen it starts at about the one hour, 24 minute mark of the October 8th episode. If you don't want to read through here are the highlights:

-Carroll says there is a great debate about whether to pick up Dunn's option. This really scared me, but Castellini's talk at the press conference kind of puts these fears to bed.

-Sheahan is very bullish on the Reds for '08. For what it's worth this was before the Dusty announcement.

-Carroll sounds really pessimistic about Jr's injury.

-Kyle Lohse gets their nod for best available free agent pitcher.

-The both support that Dunn-Votto position switch.

Joe Sheehan (JS) is a founder and leading editor for Baseball Prospectus. Will Carroll (WC) is considered the industry's leading injury expert. Also present is host Mike Siano (MS). I've added some italics to try to capture tone.

MS: Speaking of the Reds and managerial stuff Castellini has come out and said Wayne Krivsky is our GM period through a spokesperson. Krivsky has one year left on his contract and the Reds are 152-172 in his two years. How much say will Krivsky have in whether the Reds pick up Dunn's option?

JS: That's a non-starter, isn't it? I mean it's one year at... it doesn't actually matter. It's one year.

WC: I've actually heard some talk that there's a great debate in the Reds front office about whether to pick it up or not.

(silence)

WC: And that tells you all you need--

JS: Anything I say now is gonna get me taken off the air.

WC: Yeah, it would be one of the stupider moves, but you know, that's entirely possible. And the other thing you want to look at with Krivsky is yes, he's gonna be the GM, but is Walt Jocketty gonna be the CEO? Do we get into a situation, an Andy MacPhail like situation where he's gonna bring in his own guy, where they have--

JS: Didn't the Tigers do that?

WC: The Tigers did exactly that.

JS: They brought in Dombrowski and Randy Smith lasted six days.

WC: Yeah. And it could well be a similar situation if Jocketty decides not to take a year off.

JS: And I don't care who's making the decision. You pick up Dunn's option. It's one year at, what is it 12?

WC: Yeah, one of the things that they talk about is that they couldn't trade him until May because of some esoteric reason--

JS: Whoop-de-doo.

WC: Yeah.

JS: We talk about--was it on air with you guys? I, forgive me I've done a fair amount or radio. The Reds are a pretty good team.

MS: Yeah--

JS: They can score a ton of runs--

MS: Was it you that was saying--

JS: I think it was here we were talking about--

MS: Yeah, it was here. You were sitting right there and you said they may have a shot at the Central next year.

JS: If they can accidently trip over a bullpen--

MS: (laughing)

JS: I'm not even kidding you. They've got two good starters plus whatever Homer Bailey gives them. Now they have to fill out the back of the rotation. But you look at the lineup. They can score a ton of runs. The defense is, is okay, it's not great--

WC: Well hold on there. You've got to assume that Ken Griffey is back. And that was a pretty bad tear. I mean once again we're dealing with a ton of uncertainty. Griffey had a great season up to that point and now his future really in jeopardy again. So I'm not sure that same offense is--

JS: Okay, I still got Dunn, Votto, Phillips, Encarnacion, a good catcher--an underrated catching platoon--

WC: And I think Jay Bruce has a chance to crack that lineup as well.

JS: Okay, so if Bruce comes up you've got Hamilton, Dunn, you've got the--Norris Hopper is a good fourth outfielder--he played--

WC: Hamilton's gonna start in AAA.

[ED note: I'm pretty sure he meant Bruce here]

JS: Okay. I mean, I'm gonna say this team can score a ton of runs over the course of the year.

WC: Especially in that park.

JS: And not signing Dunn is a complete--what are you gonna do with that 12 million dollars? You can't do anything with it this year.

WC: The best--

JS: Give me a good player at 12 million as opposed to... what?

WC: The best pitching option out there is Kyle Lohse who they traded away.

JS: I keep coming back to this. Oh, God. Are we prepared to be in...

MS: Nashville--

JS: --three months from now and be talking about Kyle Lohse getting five and sixty from somebody?

MS: Oh my God.

WC: Yeah, because you know--

MS: (laughing)

WC: I think he's this year's Ted Lilly.

JS: I think he's this year's Gil Meche.

WC: Gil Meche.

MS: Carl Pavano...

JS: But he's the best guy in the market.

MS: It's more like Pavano because it's default.

WC: And you know who his agent is.

JS: I never know who their agent is.

WC: Scott Boras.

MS: Lohse is a Boras client? Really?

WC: Yeah.

MS: Really. I did not know that.

JS: And... (laughs) Let's just say there are better ways... If I've gotten spend 12 million dollars next year I'll spend it on Adam Dunn.

WC: Yeah.

JS: I know what Adam Dunn's gonna give me. And you know something from what I could see this year, his defense and his conditioning were both better this year. He wasn't, he looked to me like he was playing a little bit better last year--

WC: His defense looked better in the games I was down there. His conditioning was, he's starting to look a little bit more like me than he should. But much much taller.

JS: Fair enough.

WC: But he's a big guy.

JS: He's still a guy to have.

WC: Yeah, I would like to see him at first base. Just because he's, he's eating his way out of left field.

JS: What do you do with Joey?

WC: Joey doesn't play a bad left. I saw a couple games--

JS: Just flip the two of them?

WC: Yeah. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

JS: Okay. I could live with that.

MS: You think, uh--

WC: I think the Reds have a number of guys, Joe makes a good point here, a number of guys who are going to be very late round [fantasy] picks like Votto, and maybe you take a--

JS: Keppinger.

WC: Keppinger's a guy. A lot of, I don't think Jay Bruce is gonna be a sleeper, but you might make that quicker pick than a lot of people would because it would not surprise me if our buddy Kevin Goldstein ranked him number one.

JS: Uh, yeah. I don't know who it's--him or Kershaw?

WC: Yeah.

JS: Okay, we just undercut Kevin then.      

Since the powers that be have decided to fill the playoffs with off days I thought we could start debating awards. Despite the capriciousness of the official voters I'm always interested in these. I have little inclination to try to predict the horserace or to engage in semantical arguments about value (although if that's your cup of tea, have at it).

This year there will be no Morneau-over-Jeter/Mauer for statheads to rally behind. The pool of candidates in the NL is very even and any could make a good choice. Whichever player you favor, another bests him some way.

I'm looking at what I consider to be the 10 leading candidates (with apologies to Jake Peavey). I've included their slash stats (AVG/OBP/SLG), OPS+ to give some indication of park factors, Runs Created and Value Over Replacement Player to account for playing time and positional adjustment, Win Shares (THT) and Wins Above Replacement Player (level 1) to tie it all together and Jinaz's +/- runs translations of the Hardball Times fielding data (that's DEF below. I wanted to included mgl's UZR, but I couldn't find the numbers for a couple players). I'll also mention stolen bases when relevant. The candidates in alphabetical order:

Miguel Cabrera
320/401/565 OPS+ 152 RC 135 VORP 71.4 DEF -10.8 WS 30 WARP 9.1

Cabrera turned in an awesome season. If he were a strong defender he would be poised to take this, but he's a first baseman in waiting. He's near the top of the advanced metrics, but there's no compelling reason to favor him over other candidates. Also his team sucked and the player to his immediate left on the infield steals some of his thunder.

Prince Fielder
288/395/618 OPS+ 157 RC 126 VORP 69.1 DEF -11.0 WS 28 WARP 6.9

Prince took a huge step forward this year, but he looks a little outclassed among this year's top seasons. His offensive production is below some on this list and he plays a bad first base. He's the Brewer candidate and a few weeks ago it looked like he might win. Given that Milwaukee missed the playoffs he'll probably get little love now.

Matt Holliday
340/405/607 OPS+ 151 RC 125 VORP 75.0 DEF +8.3 WS 30 WARP 10.1

By powering the Rockies run to the playoffs Holliday fits a nifty story angle, but he's a solid pick even without that. He's a good defender (that brutal play in the play-in game notwithstanding) and he was worth 7-10 wins for a team that needed them all. If you like batting average that .340 is mighty tasty.

Ryan Howard
268/392/584 OPS+ 145 RC 117 VORP 53.6 DEF -7.8 WS 26 WARP 6.4

The defending champ won't likely repeat. Howard missed some time this year and saw his rate stats drop. Like Fielder he's a statue at first. He still put up a very solid season, but there's probably two teammates ahead of him.

Chipper Jones
337/425/604 OPS+ 166 RC 117 VORP 76.0 DEF +13.3 WS 26 WARP 8.7
This one surprised me. I wouldn't have included Chipper until I saw him second on David Gassko's ballot. Turns out he led the league in OPS. He's still a good defender which might make him a better choice than fellow third baseman Cabrera. The Braves' continued fall from relevance likely hurts him.

Albert Pujols
327/429/568 OPS+ 158 RC 123 VORP 72.1 DEF +30.3 WS 32 WARP 11.3

How's this for a surprise? All we heard all year is that this is a down year for Pujols, but really look at him. He saves a ton of runs with his glove, even playing first. He leads the league in WARP. His slugging is down (hurting all the fantasy players who took him first) but that could be because of New Busch Field. The Cardinals fell from their lofty 83 wins of last year which likely removes him from the discussion. But take your favorite pick for NL MVP and really compare him to down-year Albert and your guy probably comes up short.

Hanley Ramirez
332/386/562 OPS+ 147 RC 127 VORP 89.5 DEF -22.0 WS 29 WARP 8.7 (51 SB 14 CS)

Hanley put up first baseman level offense as a shortstop, which is why he kills everyone in VORP. That's balanced out by his atrocious defense--he's the Derek Jeter of the NL. However unlike Jeter Hanley isn't on a winning team. If you don't mind his D he's a solid choice.

Jimmy Rollins
296/345/531 OPS+ 122 RC 122 VORP 66.1 DEF -3.0 WS 28 WARP 9.4 (41 SB 6 CS)

Rollins seems to be the choice for people who want to celebrate the Phillies overtaking the Mets. His offense isn't close to Hanley's, but his defense is better. Even with Chase Utley's missed time it's debatable who was more valuable to their team.

Chase Utley
332/410/566 OPS+ 147 RC 108 VORP 68.8 DEF +20.2 WS 28 WARP 9.6

If Utley hadn't broken his hand in July he wouldn't probably be tops. Despite only playing 132 games he might have outproduced Rollins. He puts up great offensive numbers while playing the best second base in the league (ok, maybe it's Brandon Phillips).

David Wright
325/416/546 OPS+ 152 RC 136 VORP 81.1 DEF +28.8 WS 34 WARP 11.2 (34 SB 5 CS)

Wright leads the league in Win Shares and Runs Created. He trails only the defensively challenged Hanley Ramirez in VORP. Pujols edges him in WARP by 0.1. He plays great defense. He steals bases at a fantastic rate. But the Mets collapse will likely cost him the award, even though Wright OPSed over 1000 during the September swoon. He's my choice.

Pedro on Monday -- in Cincinnati

Pedro Martinez will most likely make his 2007 debut against the Reds on Labor Day. I know a lot of RRers are planning to attend. Here's a good place to talk about it. I'm 50/50.

vs. Cincinnati
G   GS  GF  W   L   S   CG SHO   IP     ERA    H    R   ER   HR  BB  IBB  SO
17  11   3   6   2   1   2   1   88.2   2.03   44   24   20   3   22   1  102

Correlation

Our Sabermetric Overview Series has lost some momentum (which doesn't really exist in baseball, but nevermind) so I thought I'd kick start it with a big diary about the C-word.

Baseball statheads love saying the word correlation. Sabermetricians toss around "correlation" like Joe Morgan does "consistency" (in terms of frequency, not accuracy). But what does it mean? Let's get to the bottom of it and lay the groundwork (read: ruin the surprises) for further installments in this series.

! A Note: This is about as math-y as the new baseball thinking gets. I mean it's scary `rithmatic--we're talking weird stuff like "linear regression" and "covariance". If you want to do cool original baseball research these days you have to know how to do this stuff. Fortunately you don't need to know much math to understand the concepts. Take me. I have no idea how any of this stuff works and I'm writing a Goddamn primer on it. That's why I'm carefully citing all the charts and figures here. I didn't do any of this work (with one exception). I'm just cribbing it from people who kindly posted their efforts on the internet. My prediction: this diary will have enough weird concepts to freak out mathophobes while having plenty of incorrect information to piss off the people who actually know about this stuff. And away we go!

Correlation (or the correlation coefficient) describes a relationship between two variables. In our case the variables are going to be baseball statistics--strikeouts and runs scored or BA w/RISP '06 and BA w/RISP '07. It could be any two sets of data ("Things", for our purposes). Statisticians have many different ways to measure the relationship between the two Things. The most common is called the Pearson product method, named for some guy called Pearson (or maybe some other guy called Galton). This is what the guts of what we're talking about looks like:

Don't worry if you don't understand this! Nobody does. Scientists have been studying it for years and so far they have only concluded that math is hard.

The important thing is that you get something designated `r' or the correlation coefficient that describes the relationship. Let's talk real world and use visuals.

Here's a chart of boys' heights vs their age. As you can see there's some positive correlation. As the boys get older they generally get taller. The dots kind of go from the bottom left to the upper right. Sometimes statisticians will draw a "best fit line" through the data to give you the idea. Now here's a chart of boys' heights vs the month in which they were born.

It's just a big blob! There's no correlation, and why would there be? What month a boy is born has no bearing on how tall he'll be. Remember, when you see a big blob there's no correlation (these charts courtesy of Science Buddies.org: Free Science Fair Project Ideas, Answers and Tools for Serious Students1).

The correlation coeffecient, r, is expressed as a number between -1 and 1. If there's no correlation it's 0. So if the correlation is between 0 and -1 (say -0.25) there's an inverse correlation. If it's between 0 and 1 (say 0.58) there's a positive correlation. The closer to 1 or -1 the stronger the correlation.

Now let's talk baseball (finally). There are many nifty things we can do with this. One is seeing which stats correlate best with scoring or preventing runs so we know how best to judge players. Here are the correlation coefficients between run scoring and various offensive measures (courtesy of Dan Fox at the HardballTimes2)

BB   0.590
HR   0.719
AVG 0.843
OBP  0.910
SLG  0.913
OPS  0.955
RC    0.964

RC is Runs Created, a fancy saberstat. As you can see all of these measure have a positive correlation with run scoring. The more advanced measures paint a fuller picture. Some data--say GIDP--would have a negative correlation with run scoring and the numbers would be below zero. SPOILER ALERT: strikeouts are right about at zero when it comes to scoring runs.

Another useful way to use this tool is to check for correlations between a statistic in one year and that same statistic the next year. If a player has a skill, like Adam Dunn's home run power, it will strongly correlate year-to-year. If a player's stats are the result of normal statistical fluctuation (luck, to use a loaded term) they won't correlate year-to-year--think Bronson Arroyo's home run power. Here's how some basic batting stats correlated (r-squared) from 2005 to 2006 (courtesy of David Appelman at FanGraphs3):

AVG  .12
OBP  .36
OPS  .36
SLG  .38

Batting average correlates only a third as well as the others. It really fluctuates. Remember in Bull Durham when Kevin Costner made that speech about how if he could just get one extra flukey hit a month he'd hit .300 instead of .250 and be in the show? He's talking about batting average's low correlation year-to-year even if he doesn't know it. If Crash's GM were savvy he'd look beyond the average (inflated on balls in play) and see that his slugging and on base skills were the same. Maybe in September, Crash. SPOILER ALERT: any sort of stat designed to measure clutchness--hitting with RISP, Late Inning Pressure Situations, October accomplishments--do not correlate from one year to the next. This is why Stats geeks say clutch is not a skill.

Turning to pitching stats, here's a graph showing the correlation of one year's ERA to the next year's (courtesy of JC Bradbury at the HardballTimes4):

As you can see from the best fit line the blob is slightly moving in the right direction. The r-squared is .13, about the same as batting average--better than nothing but we can do a lot better. Here's the same thing with strikeout rate:

Oh yeah! Now there's some correlation. Point-six-one baby! So we just learned that if we're trying to predict a pitcher's future performance we'd be much better off looking at his K-rate than ERA. SPOILER ALERT: stats that are independent of the pitcher's defense--K-rate, BB-rate and HR-rate--are the basis of a nerdy way to evaluate pitcher's called DIPS (Defensive Independent Pitching Stats).

If you'd like to do this wizardry yourself you easily can in Excel (here comes the original research of this piece). Just click on the paste function button, under Function Category select Statistical, under Function Name select Pearson (Galton?), then in the popup highlight one column or row of data for Array1 and another set of data for Array2. The result is the correlation between your two Things. Square it for the r-squared. Now I can tell you that in the Joe Morgan Red Reporter Fantasy League, the correlation between a team's standing and its number of roster moves is a whopping .73!

These Things are closely correlated...

Update [2007-8-7 9:57:58 by Red Menace]: I forgot to mention the important maxim that correlation does not equal causation (technically, as Gray points out, one should say correlation does not imply causation, because sometimes correlation does equal causation). Or to be properly anal: empirically observed covariation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for causality. Example: there's a strong correlation between ice cream sales and drownings. If one forgot that C does not imply C, one would say ice cream causes drownings. In fact both are affected by a third factor: hot weather. For a baseball example there's a slight positive correlation between strike outs and run scoring, but you shouldn't tell all your hitters to try to strike out more. Both strike outs and run scoring seem to be the result of going deep into counts by waiting for a pitch to drive.