NL MVP

[Guest]

What about Carlos Gonzalez? There's an interesting 3-man race for the triple crown in the NL. Obviously, any of them do it, they're the MVP. But don't discount Gonzalez, especially if the Cards don't make the playoffs and the Rockies make another run. Up to the moment.

 

Pujols- .313 (5th), 35 HR (1st), 95 RBI (2nd)

Votto- .325 (2nd), 32 HR (2nd), 97 RBI (1st)

CarGo- .328 (1st), 30 HR (5th), 92 RBI (3rd)

 

And Gonzalez spent the first 1/3 to 1/4 of the season batting leadoff or else those RBI numbers would be up, and with some ailments he's suffered, he has about 25 fewer PAs than Votto, and nearly 70 fewer than Pujols. Add in that he also steals bases, and he should be a strong MVP candidate.

 

Gonzalez sucks away from Coors.

 

H: .386/.431/.781/1.212, 260 PAs, 23 HR, 38 K

A: .275/.296/.437/.733, 257 PAs 7 HR, 75 K

 

And that's with a .365 BABIP on the road also (its .379 at home).

[SouthSideRyan]

BABIP and home/road splits are useful for projections going forward, not for knowing how good a year a player had.

[Guest]

BABIP and home/road splits are useful for projections going forward, not for knowing how good a year a player had.

 

Any particular reason why not in terms of the home/road splits? Because it sure looks like he sucked horribly outside of Coors (half of his PAs) with a poor OPS that was only sort of propped up by his SLG, since his OBP was pathetic.

 

The BABIP I threw in because it's not like he was a victim of bad luck on the road which caused the horrible line.

[TruffleShuffle]

his point was that it doesn't have any impact on how the guy actually produced. gonzalez could be the luckiest player in the world with a 1.000 babip and yes, that would be completely absurd and unsustainable, but that wouldn't change the fact that he's been remarkably productive.

 

to put it another way, austin jackson has a .418 babip this year, which is absurd. granted, he's a fast runner, hits a lot of line drives and ground balls and keeps his fly ball rate low, so he profiles as a high BABIP guy (which he has been throughout his minor league career). but he's very unlikely to hit over .300 again if he keeps striking out 27% of the time. but he's been the most productive position player in the AL this year, even if he's unlikely to reach this level of success next year.

 

side note, aaron hill's babip is .201, which is just awesome.

[sneakypower]

of course Cargo's doing dismally on the road, there's the constant adjustment of facing fastballs with movement after being spoiled by the Coors effect of straightening out fastballs. it's impossible to say for sure whether he'd be able to adapt in a totally different hitting environment, but it's ignorant and lazy to quickly dismiss what he's done as a Coors fluke (Holliday's putting up a .900 OPS yet again)

 

this study does a fantastic job of summing up the Coors effect

[Guest]

That makes sense.

 

Still don't think he should be in the discussion with Votto and Pujols, though.

[SouthSideRyan]

I think it depends on how much stock you put in his defense. A good-great fielding OF vs. a good-great fielding 1B

[sneakypower]

BtBS also had a write-up on his accomplishments so far (albeit using pretty arbitrary criteria)

 

Basically, I wanted to know, "Within a single season, has everyone ever hit 34 homers, 10 triples and 32 doubles, while stealing 24 bases?"

 

And the results? It's happened once, and that was 88 years ago. In 1922, a 32-year-old Ken Williams batted .332/.413/.627 with 34 doubles, 11 triples, 39 homers and 37 steals. It's truly a sight to behold, Williams' 1922 line. Beyond all those extra-base hits and steals, he tossed in a league-leading 155 RBI, 128 runs scored, an unreal 74-31 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and he even got caught stealing on 20 occasions. The lowest figure in his entire basic statistical line from Baseball Reference is the 11 triples. Seriously, that stuff is bananas.

[17 Seconds]

of course Cargo's doing dismally on the road, there's the constant adjustment of facing fastballs with movement after being spoiled by the Coors effect of straightening out fastballs. it's impossible to say for sure whether he'd be able to adapt in a totally different hitting environment, but it's ignorant and lazy to quickly dismiss what he's done as a Coors fluke (Holliday's putting up a .900 OPS yet again)

 

it's ignorant to dismiss what he's done this year, but it's also ignorant to ignore that coors has definitely helped his numbers.

 

even your example of holliday shows that. holliday has OPSs of .973, 1.012, and .947 in his last 3 seasons with colorado. since leaving, he's gone down to .909 and .900

 

gonzalez has definitely been very good this season, but he's also definitely gotten a boost in his numbers from coors.

[sneakypower]

who the hell is being ignorant of that, i just cited like a 75,000 word essay that explained in exhaustive detail the Coors park factor?

 

why aren't all other Rockies putting up a 1.241 OPS at home?