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Guillen over Jeter for AL MVP?

Mephistopheles

By Mephistopheles,
in Chicago Cubs Talk

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Mephistopheles Knoxville Smokies

Mephistopheles

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Sounds insane, but at least hear me out. It's a lot closer than you might think. If you just look at VORP, Win Shares, WARP and other statistics like that - Jeter is better than Guillen in all of them.

 

However, there's the whole "value to the team" argument. If you were to take a look at an equation of the pythagorean wins of a team hold runs allowed constant (in this case at 800), you'd get this:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/runstowins.gif

 

Most of you probably already realize that when converting runs into wins, there's diminishing marginal returns (wins) to each run that is created. In Carlos Guillen's case he is adding 67.0 runs from VORP takes the Tigers from arguably the worst lineup in the American League to the middle of the pack. Derek Jeter's 79.2 runs from VORP takes the Yankees from a good offense to a great offense.

 

So all I did was take the pythagorean record from each team and calculated the amount of wins lost on each team losing their player. Derek Jeter's 79.2 runs converted to 6.61 wins and Carlos Guillen's 67.0 runs converted to 6.62 wins. That's essentially a wash between the players. VORP takes in account an average defense, so who is ever better on defense probably did more for their team. Neither player's defense is held to high regard, but in a general sense from older UZRs and recent other things, Guillen might be slightly better. There's also a case that the six and a half wins from Guillen improved the likelihood of the Tigers making the playoffs than Jeter's six and a half wins did for the Yankees.

 

Finally there is another component that's a bit different. Jeter's higher VORP may have to do with being on the Yankees more than being better. The team OBP for the Yankees was over 30 points higher than the team OBP for the Tigers. The Yankees lineup simply turned over more creating more opportunities for Jeter to seperate himself from a replacement player and creating more runs. Each spot in the Yankee lineup had 22 more PAs than the corresponding spot in the Tiger lineup. Also, Jeter spent most of the season batting second with 50 or so PAs batting third. Carlos Guillen spent most of the season batting fifth with 50 or so PAs batting seventh. Each spot in the lineup has about 20 fewer PAs than the spot in front of it. The time Guillen spent batting fifth while Jeter batted second was about 60 additional PAs for Jeter. The time Jeter spent batting third and Guillen bat seventh was an additional 8-10 PAs from Jeter.

 

Totalling all of these up we're going to get roughly 90 more PAs for Jeter than Guillen simply by the Yankees lineup and where they hit. Call it poor managing and the quality of hitter surrounding the two if you will. Jeter played one more game and had 93 more PA's so all of this makes some sort of sense. If you were to remove this compensation for Jeter and add the 90s PAs to Guillen, his VORP is going to be about 77.0, shrinking the difference to 2 runs. That's to the point where the quality of defense certainly makes the difference.

 

Finally, the Tigers had some injuries, lack of production and other factors that led to Guillen getting 8 of his games at first and 4 games at DH. That's lowering the level of his replacement level player for 50 or so PAs. The main reason Guillen moved to first for this was issues surrounding the Tigers. Not really his fault. Jeter being Jeter would never play a game at first on the Yankees because he's Jeter. If he would, he would have moved off shorstop when Rodriguez was acquired. Anyways if you factor the difference in his RP because of these PA's, you're going to see Guillen's VORP jump to 81.5, a couple of runs ahead of Jeter. And a lot ahead of in wins. Guillen was actually a better hitter on a per PA basis from MLVr in VORP.

 

Regardless, I wouldn't vote for Guillen nor Jeter (Santana), but if you undergo the assumption of no pitchers or designated hitters, Guillen just might the man over Jeter.

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Mephistopheles Knoxville Smokies

Mephistopheles

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Has anyone outside of Colorado hit .343 and not have it be a fluke?

 

Well at least recently... Cano's .340 BA is much more of a fluke than Jeter's. Guillen on the other hand has had his BABIP flactuate between .350-.360 the last three seasons.

 

This year Guillen had a .300 BA, .400 OBP and a .500 SLG. All the shortstops since 1900 to do it:

 

2006 .320/.400/.519 - Carlos Guillen

2000 .372/.434/.599 - Nomar Garciaparra

2000 .316/.420/.606 - Alex Rodriguez

1999 .357/.418/.603 - Nomar Garciaparra

1999 .349/.438/.552 - Derek Jeter

1996 .358/.414/.631 - Alex Rodriguez

1987 .343/.402/.551 - Alan Trammell

1948 .355/.453/.534 - Lou Boudreau

1941 .311/.406/.508 - Joe Cronin

1941 .359/.410/.520 - Cecil Travis

1938 .325/.428/.536 - Joe Cronin

1936 .388/.474/.508 - Luke Appling

1935 .385/.491/.607 - Arky Vaughan

1934 .333/.431/.511 - Arky Vaughan

1930 .346/.422/.513 - Joe Cronin

1911 .334/.423/.507 - Honus Wagner

1908 .354/.415/.542 - Honus Wagner

1907 .350/.408/.513 - Honus Wagner

1905 .363/.427/.505 - Honus Wagner

1904 .349/.423/.520 - Honus Wagner

1903 .355/.414/.518 - Honus Wagner

 

That's one hell of a list! The only guy on their other than Guillen who isn't a borderline Hall of Famer is Cecil Travis. Travis was on his way to being Hall of Fame worthy until he fought in World War II - right after that season. He was just 27 at the time and caught a bad case of frostbite in the Battle of the Bulge. He was never the same once he came back. Before the war he was voted the game's best shortstop taking the torch from Arky Vaughan and Joe Cronin. Cecil Travis has been forgotten since then...

 

And if you want to shorten that list, Carlos Guillen swiped twenty bags this season. The only guys to do that were Alan Trammell and Honus Wagner (who did it a lot). Either way it was quite a season for Carlos Guillen that is flying under the radar.

Shilzzz Knoxville Smokies

Shilzzz

Verified Member
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*clears throat*

 

well, i always think that an mvp should not just be rated on those things that you pointed out, but it should also be taken into account how jeter plays for the yankees. he wears number 2 for the yankees, which is close to number 3, which was BABE RUTH's number. so right there, that tells ya that he's good.

 

jeter is also very clutch, which is something guillen is not. i mean, if jeter comes to the plate with runners in scoring position he will knock them in 3 times out of ten, which is clearly well above his batting average otherwise. and it's even tougher to do in new york, especially for the yankees because it's a tough town. so you have to be tough to be clutch and i like tough guys. tough guys are valuable. most valuable.

 

he's so pretty too. i think he's been spotted recently with jessica alba. man, she's hot isn't she. that's pretty clutch of jeter to get with jessica alba, guillen couldn't do that.

 

these things are intangibles, guys. you just can't put this stuff into numbers, and it's not like you nerds know anything about baseball. maybe if you watched more games you'd understand.

CaliforniaRaisin GOAT

CaliforniaRaisin

Community Moderator
Posted
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he's so pretty too. i think he's been spotted recently with jessica alba. man, she's hot isn't she. that's pretty clutch of jeter to get with jessica alba, guillen couldn't do that.

 

Drew (FL): Jessica Alba or Derek Jeter?

 

SportsNation Jim Callis: Now if it were Jessica vs. not having to answer any more Jeter questions, that would be tough.

CubinNY MVP

CubinNY

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

kc tigers,

 

We haven't seen that kind of analysis since Bob's Keeper's last article. But a lot of people don't know what pythagreon win totals mean, let alone runs created, Win Shares, WARP and VORP. That's probably why you didn't get a ton of replys.

 

I think your post was great, but I still take Jeter. He actually diserves the credit this year.

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