Burning Questions: Who Are the 2014 NL Midseason Award Winners?
The numberFire baseball staff has been and will be posting a recurring feature entitled Burning Questions. The idea is simple: we pose a general question to the numberFire baseball staff, getting contributors to provide an answer and an explanation on the particular subject.
This gives you, the reader, a chance to hear opinions from many different experts, who, believe it or not, don't always agree on everything. What we do have in common is a knowledge of and love for the game, and we want you to be a part of the conversation. Feel free to pose an answer to this or a future burning question on Twitter, or tell us why you agree or disagree with one or more of our answers. These features are designed to start the conversation, not to offer a comprehensive solution, and often there is not a clear correct answer.
Additionally, we will be happy to consider any burning questions that our readers might have. Tell us what you want to know and we will offer our opinions.
And now, our answers to the latest burning question: Who are your National League midseason award winners?
A.J. Weinberg's Thoughts:
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki
Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw
Rookie: Billy Hamilton
I wanted to make a case for Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutchen, or Jonathan Lucroy as the midseason NL Most Valuable Player, but in the end the numbers are too strongly in Troy Tulowitzki's favor. He is atop the nERD leaderboard, just barely above Mike Trout, and he has an absurd 176 wRC+. That means he’s creating 76% more runs than an average player, and that mark bests everyone except Trout (I guess that these two are pretty good, huh?) who has a wRC+ of 177. Sure, his team is doing quite poorly, but I wouldn’t want to see where they would be without him. Stanton, McCutchen, and Lucroy are all on superior teams, but Tulowitzki is the MVP in the NL as evidenced by his numbers.
While Adam Wainwright and Johnny Cueto have pitched more innings, Clayton Kershaw has been otherworldly this year. Wainwright has an xFIP of 3.23 and Cueto 2.99. Both are undoubtedly strong figures, but they pale in comparison to Kershaw’s 1.64 mark. Kershaw is striking batters out at a significantly higher rate than either while walking them with less frequency. His 3.4 fWAR is better than both of theirs (0.2 higher than Waino, 0.5 higher than Cueto) despite having started five fewer games than both of them. That's nuts. The production Kershaw is putting forth in 2014 is downright flabbergasting, and is even better than what he did during his 2013 NL Cy Young campaign.
With all due respect to Billy Hamilton, it would be nice if I could just give the NL Rookie of the Year to Masahiro Tanaka. That being said, Hamilton’s turnaround since his slow start has been impressive. His average is now up at .280 thanks to a great June where he hit .327. He’s stolen 37 bases at roughly a 75% success rate, which, to be fair, isn’t fantastic for a guy with his speed, but the sheer number is great in and of itself. It would be nice if, as a leadoff hitter, he could improve upon his .312 on-base percentage, but that is not nearly enough for him to lose his grip on the NL Rookie of the Year race.
John Stolnis' Thoughts:
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki
Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw
Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton
I don't subscribe to the theory that a player has to play for a playoff contender to be MVP. Tulo is the best player in the National League this year, and that's that. An NL-best fWAR of 5.4 and MLB's top nERD of 4.85. But perhaps just as impressive is his defense, tied for 13th in baseball in defensive runs saved, with +8.
Even though he missed the first month and a half of the season, Clayton Kershaw has been the best pitcher in the National League and deserves his third Cy Young. We're watching a modern day Sandy Koufax here, folks. It's crazy that he's already generated an fWAR of 3.4, tops in the National League and 4th in all of baseball. And yet he's pitched just 87.1 innings, 29.1 innings fewer than the pitcher just ahead of him in fWAR, Minnesota's Phil Hughes.
Hamilton was a borderline candidate to make the All Star team this year. One of the fastest players in baseball, his 37 stolen bases lead the National League (his 12 caught stealing are also the most, however), and his above average defense in center field puts him atop the fWAR leaderboard for rookies in the NL at 3.2, far ahead of the second closest player, Arizona's Chris Owings. He'll need to increase his 4.4% walk rate and .312 on-base percentage if he's going to stay at the top of the lineup, but in a weaker rookie field this year, Hamilton is far and away the best.
Jim Sannes' Thoughts:
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki
Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw
Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton
Unlike earlier in the year, Tulo actually has some competition for this honor in the N.L. Guys like Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutchen, and even Jonathan Lucroy are finally giving him a push for the crown. But, when you're a shortstop that hits taters left and right and plays plus-defense, you're going to be pretty hard to pass up for MVP. Any year in which a guy with a .348/.440/.597 slash doesn't win the MVP should be an anomaly, and this will not be that year.
I really wanted to be a #hipster and take Adam Wainwright here instead of Kershaw, but the numbers just said nah, bruh. Kershaw averages four more strikeouts per nine innings than Wainwright (11.85 to 7.63), less walks per nine, and has a lower FIP and xFIP than Wainwright despite a slightly higher ERA. If you take out Kershaw's 1.2 inning-, seven-run shelling on May 17th, he has a 1.16 ERA in 85.2 innings. That's inhuman. He's your Cy Young.
After a rough start, Billy Hamilton actually hasn't been too shabby offensively for the Reds. Since the beginning of June, Hamilton is hitting .315/.340/.510 with 18 extra-base hits and 17 stolen bases. He has also been one of the best defensive outfielders in the league. Get this man his hardware, mayne.
Ari Ross' Thoughts:
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki
Cy Young: Adam Wainwright
Rookie of the Year: Gregory Polanco
Even in the thin air at Coors Field, Tulowitzki's numbers are too gawdy to ignore. Tulowitzki leads the MLB in batting average (.349) weighted on-base percentage (.448) and on-base plus slugging (1.044), the only hitter in the Majors with an OPS above 1.000. His nERD score is also good for tops in all of baseball.
ERA- is used measure how a player performed in relation to the league average. With an ERA- of 50, good for best in the MLB, Adam Wainwright is pitching 50 percent better than the league average, and 3 percent better than the next closest NL pitcher, Johnny Cueto. Wainwright also leads the NL in ERA, and is second in FIP and WAR, only behind Clayton Kershaw, finally giving him a deserved Cy Young award.
In just 118 plate appearances, Gregory Polanco has already shown himself to be a future star. Polanco had a hit in each of his first 11 games, while his weighted on-base percentage of .348 and offensive runs above average of 3.6 are good for third among National League rookies.
Alexander Griffel's Thoughts:
MVP: Jonathan Lucroy
Cy Young: Adam Wainwright
Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton
As a player at a premium position putting up the numbers he has, Lucroy deserves the nod here. He has a .327 batting average and a .908 OPS as a catcher, which makes his numbers more impressive and more valuable. His defense is good, with a 1.0 dWAR. He’s fourth in the league in WAR. But most importantly, his Brewers are in first place following a franchise-best 49-32 record after 81 games, and he’s the biggest reason why.
Wainwright is leading the league with a minuscule 1.79 ERA, and is tied for the league lead with 11 wins. He’s also second in innings pitched, with 131, and is the biggest reason why the Cardinals still find themselves in second place in the NL Central. Besides for being the ace, he’s been the stabilizing workhorse at the front of a rotation devastated by injury. He also leads the league in FIP at 2.50, which means that his defense hasn’t had to work too hard behind him.
The rookie field in the NL is weak this year. Hamilton has more games played than any other rookie, which helps his case. Despite his weak .730 OPS, his blinding speed is the reason many fans go to the ballpark. He leads rookies with 37 steals by a large margin. Also his defense is superb, a big reason why he has 2.5 WAR (baseball-reference.com version) to this point. He’s the worthiest candidate.
Michael Stern's Thoughts:
MVP: Jonathan Lucroy
Cy Young: Adam Wainwright
Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton
Jonathan Lucroy is my pick here. Lucroy is the engine that makes the surprising NL Central-leading Brewers go. He’s hitting .327 on the season with 9 homers and 44 RBI, but that average jumps to .351 in wins, .380 when leading off an inning, and .352 in “late and close†situations. Basically, Lucroy is a great hitter overall, but he’s better in big spots. Add in Lucroy’s control of a Milwaukee pitching staff that has surprised, and the backstop is my clear NL MVP choice.
Adam Wainwright has kept the Cardinals in the NL playoff race. He’s tied for the NL lead with 11 wins, is the only NL starter with an ERA under 2.00, his .924 WHIP ranks second in the league. He’s also struck out 111 batters, and his 2.50 FIP is the lowest among qualified starters in the NL (Kershaw is not qualified). With seemingly every St. Louis starter behind him going down, Wainwright has been the Cardinals’ saving grace this year.
The rookie crop is weak in the NL, but Billy Hamilton has played well all season for the Reds. The speedster sports a .312 OBP, 37 stolen bases, and 5 triples. He’s clearly the linchpin of the Cincinnati offense, hitting .357 in wins and .192 in losses. He also has a .324 average with runners in scoring position and two outs, not bad for someone still learning to hit at the big league level. As Hamilton improves at the plate, the Reds could rise in the NL Central.
Dan Weigel's Thoughts:
MVP: Troy Tulowitzki
Cy Young: Adam Wainwright
Rookie of the Year: Billy Hamilton
Lucroy is having a nice season, but to me, the only legitimate argument against Tulowitzki is that he plays for a bad team. I, like many of my colleagues, think that argument is a bunch of crap. Who cares if Carlos Gonzalez gets hurt and the Rockies still can’t figure out how to pitch at Coors Field? Those are events independent of Tulowitzki’s performance and thus should not be considered when judging a player’s case for the most prestigious individual award in the sport.
I understand the appeal of choosing a player who carries his team to the playoffs and the narrative that goes along with it, but as a stats guy, I think narratives have no place in the game. Ok, I’m kidding, and after reading the backstory about Yasiel Puig's harrowing escape from Cuba, I can understand the sentiment surrounding his case and would be pretty thrilled if he won the award. However, it is better for the legitimacy of the award if we separate the narratives from the statistics and focus on the statistics per se, where Tulowitzki, for the reasons listed above by my colleagues, has the clear advantage.
For the Cy Young Award, if you had a choice between the best pitcher in the league (Kershaw) for 87.1 innings plus a replacement level pitcher for 43.7 innings or the second best pitcher in the league (Wainwright) for 131 innings, who would you choose?
By combining Kershaw and the replacement level and pitting them against Wainwright, the durable Wainwright comes out on top. Wainwright had the slightly better ERA of 1.79 anyway, but when measured against the projected ERA of Kershaw plus a replacement player (ERA for replacement player calculated according to Keith Woolner’s formula in Baseball Between the Numbers), Wainwright holds an advantage of almost a full run, 1.79 to 2.75. Kershaw holds the edge in FIP, but with the replacement player throwing a substantial amount of innings, the totals come out approximately even at 2.50. When healthy, Kershaw has been better, but Wainwright has been more valuable so far this season.
Billy Hamilton doesn’t do much except for play really good defense and be fast, but in a watered down National League Rookie of the Year race, those two tools are good enough to earn him the nod. Those two tools are so good that Hamilton has still been able to compile 3.2 WAR. He has a limited skill set, but those skills are so good that he is more than able to make up for his deficiencies in other areas.
