Bellinger vs. Yelich - MVP

[packs]

I just don't see how Yelich could possibly win when Rendon had the year he had and finished the season as an active player. Trout should win the AL MVP because his season was far and away so much better than anyone else's. But that isn't true in the NL and I don't think Yelich blew people away like Trout did.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yelich will not win. As between Bellinger and Rendon, Bellinger is the massive betting favorite, but I would not give it to him in light of the fact that after May he didn't play at anywhere near an MVP level and his season stats are skewed by his otherworldly start. Anyone want to give me 8 to 1, I'll take Rendon.

[Touch'EmAll]

Bill, thank you for the great analytical job. Very interesting to note that is was the Brewers pitching that predominately got them the end of season winning streak. And I contend that if Yelich wasn't so darn good, they wouldn't have even been in position to take advantage of a pitching based hot streak to get into the playoffs.

As of Oct. 15th, the Las Vegas odds:
Bellinger -200
Yelich +175
Rendon +800

I love Rendon, what he did, how he did, when he did - very nice season, indeed. Love to have him on my team. But that is long Vegas odds - over 4 times less likely to win than even the second choice. Realistically however, wayyy slim chance. This coming from Vegas with actual hard money being put on the line.

From May onward (majority of season), a .260 hitter is kinda hard to choke down as an MVP is it not. Yes, Bellinger better defensively, but I don't think Yelich stunk up the joint with his defense.

Hands down the best hitter, the most consistent hitter, the hitter with better averages, the hitter with better power, across the board is Yelich. C'mon you guys, can't really honestly against argue that. Side note not yet mentioned - Not sure if stolen bases go into WAR calculation, but Yelich dominates over Bellinger there.

Curious - Anyone know which player to ever win MVP going into announcement had longest odds?

[Touch'EmAll]

Another note on Stolen Bases. Yelich had 30 stolen bases and only 2 caught. That is the highest success ratio of any of the top base stealers. Bellinger not even remotely close.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by packs

I just don't see how Yelich could possibly win when Rendon had the year he had and finished the season as an active player. Trout should win the AL MVP because his season was far and away so much better than anyone else's. But that isn't true in the NL and I don't think Yelich blew people away like Trout did.

Remind me who had the highest WPA (win probability added) in the Major Leagues? It wasn't Mike "the WAR darling" Trout. It certainly wasn't Rendon.

MLB WPA leaders (Win Probability Added for Offensive Player. Given average teams, this is the change in probability caused by this batter during the game. A change of +/- 1 would indicate one win added or lost.)

1. Christian Yelich 7.121
2. Mike Trout 5.198
3. Cody Bellinger 4.986
4. Anthony Rendon 4.760

"The year Rendon had?" If you play baseball to win the game, Christian Yelich was the best offensive player in the NL by a huge margin. Not Anthony Rendon. Yelich's bat was worth two more wins than any other hitter in the game.

Yelich was the NL MVP last year with a 1.000 OPS. Granted, the ball this year was clearly more "lively" (and I'm not going to get into a discussion if the balls were juiced). But the year after his MVP, he raised his OPS by 10%. His OPS+, which factors in park, league averages, went from 164 in 2018 to 179 in 2019. That's a substantial bump in performance. If you were told you were the best player in the league, and next year, you boosted your league-best performance by 10%, you'd think you'd repeat as MVP, wouldn't you?

Yelich had the second best AVG in the Majors. Highest OBP in the NL, second best in MLB. Highest SLG and OPS in baseball. He had the highest HR rate in the NL (only Trout was better in baseball), and the best stolen base success rate of any qualified player in Major League Baseball.

There's really no argument to be made for Anthony Rendon over Yelich. Rendon was slightly above average defensively +0.3 dWAR. Yelich slightly to moderately below, -0.7.

But WAR takes all that into consideration.

bWAR
Yelich 7.1
Rendon 6.3

fWAR
Yelich 7.8
Rendon 7.0

Rendon played 16 more games than Yelich, yet his WAR on both sites is nearly a full point (0.8) lower than Yelich.

Where's the argument to be made for Anthony Rendon over Christian Yelich?

Go back to the team strength discussion. Rendon didn't even lead his own TEAM in WAR.

Per BBR
Stephen Strasburg 6.5
Rendon 6.3
Max Scherzer 5.8
Patrick Corbin 5.4
Juan Soto 4.7
Victor Robles 4.1
Anibal Sanchez 3.3

Again, Brandon Woodruff was Milwaukee's second best player, by WAR at 3.3. He would have been the seventh-best player on the Nationals.

Anthony Rendon had a hell of a lot more help getting Washington to that Wild Card game than Christian Yelich did.

So, again, tell me: what's the argument to be made for Anthony Rendon being more valuable than Yelich?

MLB runs created leader:

1. Christian Yelich 150
Alex Bregman 150
3. Cody Bellinger 146
4. Mike Trout 145
5. Anthony Rendon 139

Rendon had a great year. But not a better, or more valuable one than Christian Yelich.

How many guys in the past have been their league's best hitter by AVG, OBP, SLG, home run rate, and its best base stealer?

Ronald Acuna led the NL with 37 stolen bases. But he was thrown out 8 times. That's an 82.2% success rate. Trea Turner stole 35, but was thrown out 5 times. That's an 87.5% success rate. Yelich stole 30 in 32 tries. That's a 93.75% success rate.

Yelich vs Trout?

Trout hit .291. Yelich .329.
Trout OBP .438. Yelich .429.
Trout SLG .645. Yelich .671.
Trout 11/13 SB, Yelich 30/32.
Trout 600 PA, Yelich 580 PA.

Trout walks about 4.5% more, hence a higher OBP. That's Trout's advantage as an offensive player right now. But the advantage is narrowing.

[packs]

I think you're the only person who commented that thinks Yelich should win. Not sure anyone voting will look at things the way you are re: the stats you picked to talk about.

[frankbmd]

The posts supporting Yelich are by far the longest.

Bill, I’m with you.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Yelich was having a terrific year when he went down. He isn't the MVP. Bill always makes strong arguments but I am guessing if he wasn't so biased in favor of the Brewers he could make different arguments from the same data.

[Touch'EmAll]

Living in Oregon and growing up in SoCal, I have absolutely no ties or love for the Brewers, couldn't care less about the team in general.

Looking at some monthly breakdowns for the bulk of the season of just simply batting averages (power numbers would skew even more in favor of Yelich):

-------- Bellinger Yelich Difference
June --- .272 ---- .365 --- a lot
July --- .265 ---- .352 --- a lot
August --- .235 ---- .306 --- a lot
Sep/Oct --- .280 ---- .345 --- a lot

Bellinger had a wonderful memorable great terrific... month or so

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Yelich was having a terrific year when he went down. He isn't the MVP. Bill always makes strong arguments but I am guessing if he wasn't so biased in favor of the Brewers he could make different arguments from the same data.

I really couldn't. I'm a bit long-winded because the evidence supporting his winning is compelling. The standard numbers make the case for Yelich. The situational stats are very close for Yelich and Rendon.

Yelich was the best hitter in the league this year by far.
Bellinger, who was great for half a year, good for the other half.
Rendon, who was consistent all year, but in the aggregate, not quite as good as Yelich.

A .265 AVG for half a season in a year when multiple teams have hit 300 home runs just isn't MVP worthy. I'm sorry. I don't care how great he was before the break. He was average (at best) in the second half. And while there's some discrepancy as to how WAR is calculated, with BBR showing Bellinger clearly ahead, and Fangraphs having them at a dead heat-both show those two well ahead of Rendon.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by packs

I think you're the only person who commented that thinks Yelich should win. Not sure anyone voting will look at things the way you are re: the stats you picked to talk about.

The stats I picked to talk about? Average, home runs, OPS, first and second half splits, leverage situations?

Those aren't numbers some theoretical physicist had to extract from a massive pile of data. Those are some pretty straightforward metrics.

Even a trained monkey can see that a half year hitting .265 isn't MVP worthy.

[packs]

Those trained monkeys are the ones voting for MVP.

But besides that, your stats really don't tell the story that makes someone an MVP. Yelich didn't have a great second half. His counting stats were essentially halved while Rendon's counting stats got better when the Nationals needed him most. Whereas Yelich's home runs and rbi's dropped by more than half, and his on base and OPS dropped, Rendon's rbi total went up, his average was more than 30 points higher, and his on base and OPS both went up. The Nats are out of the playoffs without him and given that the Nats also finished with a better record and were the superior team, their best player should naturally win the award.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Anyone want to give me 6-1 on Rendon?

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by packs

Those trained monkeys are the ones voting for MVP.

But besides that, your stats really don't tell the story that makes someone an MVP. Yelich didn't have a great second half. His counting stats were essentially halved while Rendon's counting stats got better when the Nationals needed him most. Whereas Yelich's home runs and rbi's dropped by more than half, and his on base and OPS dropped, Rendon's rbi total went up, his average was more than 30 points higher, and his on base and OPS both went up. The Nats are out of the playoffs without him and given that the Nats also finished with a better record and were the superior team, their best player should naturally win the award.

And your stats represent one of the most egregious examples of cherry picking I've ever seen on Net 54.

Yelich didn't have a great second half? Are you fucking kidding me with this??

You're telling me how great Rendon was after the All Star break. Yet:

2019 second half OPS:
Christian Yelich 1.034
Anthony Rendon 1.023.



If Christian Yelich didn't have a great second half (your words), but his performance was still better than Rendon's, what does that say about how Rendon played after the break?

Whoops.

Christian Yelich won the MVP last year with a 1.000 OPS. His 2019 second half OPS was 34 points higher than the same metric that led the National League last season.

But he didn't have a great second half. Riiiight.

And this BS about how his "counting stats were essentially halved"? Nice how you just casually gloss over that those counting stats dropped because Yelich was hurt. His didn't realize some precipitous drop in performance. He had 150 fewer plate appearances in the second half.

And this nugget--"Yelich's OBP dropped".

Yeah, from .433 to .423. Wow, what a drop off!! You also managed to avoid that Rendon's SLG dropped from .611 in the first half, to .585 in the second. But you DID mention that Yelich's SLG dropped. Yes, it dropped to .611. His SLG "dropped" to perfectly equal Rendon's "best" half of baseball from a SLG perspective.

#2

And Rendon's "counting stats" got better.

Like home runs??

Rendon's first half home runs: 20
Rendon's second half home runs: 14

#3

"Rendon's RBI total went up"

By a whopping 2. From 62 to 64. An increase of 2 RBI is such a statistically insignificant number, it's not worth mentioning. And anybody with a clue about baseball stats doesn't point to RBI for....anything, anymore. Not in 2019. RBI are a stat of opportunity. Logic dictates that the player who gets more opportunities will have a better result.

And this little gem makes me crack up:

"Rendon's counting stats got better when the Nationals needed him most."

Like the last month plus of the season, right? When a team either makes the playoffs, or misses them. September and October are where legends are born. So Rendon kicked it into high gear in September and October....when his team needed him most, right?

Hmm. Let's look at the actual statistics:

Anthony Rendon's batting statistics in September and October of 2019:

26 games played, 115 PA
.239 AVG, 3 HR, 17 RBI, slash line of .400/.420/.820.

A .239 AVG and a .820 OPS. Wow, Rendon just killed it...you know, when his team really needed him.

Just for shits and giggles, how was Christian Yelich doing before he got hurt, in September, you know, when his team "really needed him."

Christian Yelich's batting statistics in September of 2019 (I didn't include the 9th game where he came to the plate once, and Trent Grisham finished his at bat):

8 games played, 38 PA
.357 AVG, 3 HR, 8 RBI, slash line of .526/.750/1.276.

When their "teams really needed them", let's compare the performances of Anthony Rendon and Christian Yelich side by side, shall we?

September and October 2019 batting performances:
Rendon .239 AVG, .400 OBP/.420 SLG/.820 OPS
Yelich .357 AVG, .526 OBP/.750 SLG/1.276

Yes, when "their teams needed them most", Anthony Rendon performed better than Yelich....right?

#4

And those RBIs? That big counting stat you so proudly point to as evidence of Anthony Rendon's MVP worthiness. Rendon had almost exactly three times as many plate appearances as Yelich in September and October. 115 PA for Rendon, 38 for Yelich.

Rendon drove in 17 runs. Yelich drove in 8. Again, Rendon had three times the plate appearances.....but only twice Yelich's RBI count. Yelich's RBI count is more impressive than Rendon's, especially when you consider that 97.7% of Rendon's plate appearances in 2019 came from the third or fourth position in the batting order, while 78.7% of Yelich's plate appearances in 2019 came while batting second.

"Counting stats".

Down the stretch, Yelich and Rendon both had 3 HR. Only, Yelich equaled his home run total in 18 fewer games.

Yelich averaged one RBI every 4.75 PA in Sept/Oct.
Rendon averaged one RBI every 6.76 PA in Sept/Oct.

Yelich homered once every 9.33 AB in September/October. 3 HR in 28 AB.
Rendon homered once every 29.3 AB in September/October. 3 HR in 88 AB.

Counting stats!!!!!!

#5

[packs]

Who won the MVP?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

But WAR takes all that into consideration.

bWAR
Yelich 7.1
Rendon 6.3

fWAR
Yelich 7.8
Rendon 7.0

I hope that you realize that those numbers are not statistically significant, they are within the margin of error. Rendon led his team to the playoffs, Yelich did not. Even Yelich has said he doesn't think he is the NL MVP.

[tjenkins]

Maybe it should be a Fred Lynn......Pete Alonso, ROY and MVP