Boston Red Sox: Debunking the J.D. Martinez MVP narrative

The idea that J.D. Martinez was the Boston Red Sox MVP and Mookie Betts was the AL MVP is ridiculous.

Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts easily won the AL MVP Award on Thursday, with 28 of the 30 first place votes and two second place votes. It was a well-earned award for the 25-year-old outfielder who finished among the AL leaders in numerous categories. The rest of the top five included Mike Trout, Jose Ramirez, J.D. Martinez and Alex Bregman.

In the aftermath of the award announcement, most people acknowledged that Betts was deserving of the MVP. At the same time, there were many who felt Betts’ teammate on the Red Sox, J.D. Martinez, should have finished higher on the ballot than fourth. Some went so far as to claim that J.D. Martinez was the Red Sox MVP, while Betts was the league MVP.

This is ridiculous, plain and simple. It doesn’t make any sense on the surface and doesn’t make any sense with a deep dive into the data. Betts was better than Martinez in 2018 at everything a player does on the field to drive his team to victory. Betts was a better hitter, better fielder and better base runner.

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Consider the traditional numbers. Betts had a higher batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage than Martinez.

Betts: .346/.438/.640

Martinez: .330/.402/.629

They were teammates, so there’s no reason to adjust either player’s numbers for league or ballpark effects. Betts was a better hitter, which is particularly damning to Martinez because hitting is where he provided value.

Betts was also a better fielder. He won a Gold Glove Award. He played over 1100 innings in the field. Martinez was primarily a DH who played 493 innings in the outfield at a level far below Betts. Betts was a better base runner and it wasn’t just his 30 steals (to six for Martinez), it was going first to third or second to home. A position player can affect the outcome of a game in three main ways: hitting, base running, and defense. Betts was better at all three than Martinez.

A traditional fan could object here and point out the Martinez hit more home runs and had more RBI than Betts. Yes, Martinez had 43 home runs to Betts’ 32. That is the one thing he did better than Betts, but it’s rolled into the triple-slash numbers above. Home runs are part of batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

As for the RBI comparison, that’s a result of batting order. Martinez batted third or fourth and had 130 RBI. Betts batted leadoff and had 80 RBI.  Let’s break it down. Leadoff hitters (mostly Betts) on the Red Sox combined for a .418 OBP. Number two hitters (mostly Andrew Benintendi) on the Sox combined for a .340 OBP. Number three hitters on the Sox combined for a .353 OBP (this included Martinez at times). Those were the guys hitting in front of Martinez.

Now look at the players Betts had in front of him. Boston Red Sox number nine hitters (like Jackie Bradley, Jr.) combined for a .312 OBP. Red Sox number eight hitters (primarily catchers Sandy Leon and Christian Vazquez) combined for a .267 OBP. Red Sox number seven hitters (Eduardo Nunez, Brock Holt, etc.) combined for a .298 OBP. Betts simply didn’t have the opportunities to drive in runs that Martinez had.

Just to hammer home this point with one more set of numbers, here are the triple-slash lines for Betts and Martinez with runners in scoring position:

Betts, 113 PA w/RISP: .325/.496/.714.

Martinez, 200 PA w/RISP: .386/.480/.671.

Boom. Betts was even better with runners in scoring position than Martinez. There’s no way to argue that Martinez was more valuable than Betts based on what they did on the field to help the Red Sox win games. Betts was better across-the-board.

The only argument to be made in favor of Martinez is that he did things off the field that made him more valuable than Betts and that is unknowable. He’s been credited with bringing a different attitude to the Boston Red Sox and helping other Red Sox hitters with their approach to hitting. Those things can’t be measured. Also, the Red Sox turned over their coaching staff between 2017 and 2018, which further muddles the off-the-field contributions of Martinez.

J.D. Martinez had a great year for the Boston Red Sox, but it wasn’t close to Mookie Betts.