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MLB’s most valuable players…and how valuable are they?

By Bill Felber

Sep 29, 2021; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Marcus Semien (10) wears the team home run jacket in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run against New York Yankees in the first inning at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 29, 2021; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Marcus Semien (10) wears the team home run jacket in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run against New York Yankees in the first inning at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports /
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They’re passing out the Most Valuable Player awards this week. As always, they’ll do it by a vote.

That traditional way of handling the award is not the most statistically equitable way. A fairer method would be to actually calculate the true on-field value produced by each player during the 2021 season.

That process of determining the game’s most valuable players – and quantifying that value with a real, hard number – is what this essay is about. The performances of nearly 340 pitchers and nearly 275 position players are considered.

Because there are different expectations for different positions, players are analyzed in groups according to the positions they played. For non-pitchers, the fundamental yardsticks are OPS+ — a rate stat — and WAR – a cumulative stat – both of them widely recognized measures of value.

Pitchers are rated in four categories – ERA, workload, ERA+ and WAR — on the same basis.

Within each positional grouping, each player’s performance is measured against both his own salary and the average salary of group members. That underscores the valuable nature of how the market views each position.

Just as one illustration, the average starting MLB second baseman earned just $4.274 million in 2021, about half the salary of the average starting first baseman. The market obviously is making a statement about the value of second baseman.

As a result, no matter how well he does in this week’s Most Valuable Player voting, the name of Blue Jays second baseman Marcus Semien will not make this list.

In fact, several positions are entirely excluded from this list. So, for the record, here are the values of the most valuable players at each position that did not place a player among the top 25:

  • Second base: Marcus Semien, Toronto Blue Jays, $19.642 million salary, $9.821 million value, -$8.179 million difference.
  • Left field: Tyler O’Neill, St. Louis Cardinals. $595,000 salary, $4.615 million value, $4.020 million difference.
  • Center field: Cedric Mullins Baltimore Orioles. $577,000 salary, $9.943 million value, $9.366 million difference.
  • Catcher: Sal Perez, Kansas City Royals. $14.20 million salary, $12.239 million salary, -$1.961 million difference.
  • Starting pitchers: Zack Wheeler, Philadelphia Phillies. $22.5 million salary, $11.071 million value, -$11.429 million difference.
  • Closers: Emmanuel Clase, Cleveland Indians. $572,000 salary, $8.194 million value, $7.622 million difference.
  • Other pitchers: Ranger Suarez, Texas Rangers. $569,000 salary, $6.738 million value, $6.169 million difference.

With that as a prelude, here are the 20 most valuable players of 2021, plus their actual on-field values.

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