Thursday, October 1, 2009

What to do This Winter- Washington Nationals

I'd like to start an offseason outlook series beginning with the league's worst team: The Washington Nationals.
Currently 55-103, their situation isn't exactly desirable. However, they have had excellent seasons from Adam Dunn (.268/.398/.532), Ryan Zimmerman (.286/.358/.518), and Josh Willingham (.265/.373/.508) which provided some good pop in the middle of the lineup. The rotation looked good early on, but Tommy John surgery to Jordan Zimmerman, and a poor showing by Collin Balester sidetracked them a bit. John Lannan has been a bright spot with a 3.38 ERA and 4.69 FIP albeit with an alarmingly low 3.88 K/9.
So what should they do this offseason? Sell high on Dunn, who is batting 20 points higher than his career average, and Willingham, who is on his way to career highs in OBP and SLG? With J. Zimmerman out most or all of next year, they may hope to wait until 2011 when Stephen Strasburg has at least part of a year of major league pitching under his belt. Although, signing a middle of the rotation innings eater to an incentive laden contract may not be a bad idea for a holdover until then (think Rich Harden, Doug Davis, or Jon Garland).

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hello world! (Plus a note about this year's AL MVP)

Hello all, and welcome to Unbiased Baseball Daily! This blog will mostly be about what the title says: a daily look at the world of baseball in the most unbiased way possible. Feel free to leave comments and discuss either what I post about or something else if you'd like.

Today's topic I'll be addressing is this year's American League MVP. There are several candidates this year, with still a few weeks of baseball to go and multiple playoff races to sort through. Some clear candidates that spring to mind right off the bat are:

Joe Mauer of the second place Minnesota Twins. Mauer missed the first month or so of the season, but has since put up outstanding numbers, currently a line of .374/.441/.610 (leading the league in all three categories I might add) while playing catcher. His team however, is in second place and seems likely to miss out on the playoffs.

Derek Jeter of the AL-leading New York Yankees. Has put up a line of .330/.399/.466, which is even more impressive coming from a 35 year old shortstop. While he trails Mauer in all three categories, his team is currently in first place. Jeter also broke his team's all time hits record and has never won the award before despite being one of his generation's greatest players.

Ben Zobrist of the third place Tampa Bay Rays. Zobrist came into the year largely as a utility bench player. His current line is .283/.395/.525 and gains more strength since he has spent time at second base, third base, shortstop, left field, center field, and right field. Although a majority of his time was at second, he has since moved largely to right with the return Akinori Iwamura.

Other candidates include, but are not limited to: Russel Branyan, Kevin Youkilis, Jason Bay, Mark Teixeira, Zack Greinke, Jason Bartlett, Ian Kinsler, Miguel Cabrera, Carl Crawford, Aaron Hill, Adam Lind, Ichiro Suzuki, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Kendry Morales, and Chone Figgins.

Every year, the same debate spring up about the MVP: should it go the best team's best player or to the league's best statistical player. One school of thought is imagining the team without that player which consists of looking at VORP, Runs Created, and Wins Above Replacement. Another is to try to see a player's intangible contributions which is borderline impossible to see through statistics. Defense can never be underrated either, but debate rages on whether UZR/150, Range Factor, or Fielding percentage should count most when looking at that aspect. The question has gone from being win-win to lose-lose. No matter who the Baseball Writers of America vote for, there will be a crowd asking them why not another player because of his superior stats in a particular area.