Grading the work of BBWAA MLB award voters

The MLB award season concluded Thursday with the announcement of the Most Valuable Players, so it’s time to grade the performance of the BBWAA voters.

It was uneven. In most cases, voters performed brilliantly. They parsed some of the toughest contests (notably AL MVP and AL Manager of the Year) in arriving at the correct conclusions.

In at least two, however, they whiffed badly. Their selections for both NL Manager of the Year and NL MVP were underwhelming less for who they chose than for who they did not even deem worthy of consideration.

Grading the MLB award winners and ballots

MLB analysts rated most of the 2022 contests as straightforward. Just to cite a couple of examples…

The selection of Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez was widely heralded as cut-and-dried, mostly due to the fact that Rodriguez produced a superb slugging average while lifting the M’s to their first post-season appearance in two decades.

Sandy Alcantara was similarly anointed winner of the NL Cy Young Award well before he actually received the award Wednesday night.

In reviewing how well voters performed this award season, we’re using the same letter grade system you probably survived in high school: A for an exemplary voting performance, F for failure to pay attention.

Voters managed to avoid earning any Fs this year, although there were a couple of close calls.

In deciding who actually should have won each award, we’re not relying on predetermined criteria. For some awards, such yardsticks as WAR or Win Probability Added are relevant. For others, notably the managerial contests, Pythagorean performance may be relevant. In still others, the criteria could be subjective.

For the record, the composite ‘GPA’ of voters in the eight contests works out to an even 3.0. So they solidly passed, if not with honors.

Grade: A

AL Manager of the Year voters faced the deepest field of candidates of any of the major awards. Several managers merited serious consideration. Despite the closeness of the competition, voters nailed the winner and runner-up.

Their down-ballot work – spots three through six – was somewhat more problematic. But the only true error was a trivial one, giving Yankee manager Aaron Boone four votes and a fifth place finish he didn’t deserve.

Terry Francona’s work in walking away with a third Manager of the Year Award – he won in 2013 and 2016 – gave him the upper hand over the also-deserving Brandon Hyde. Francona took a team of lightly regarded non-stars and by season’s end had them playing like a scourge of gnats. At 92-70 the Guardians walked away with the AL Central by 11 games, playing .800 ball (24-6) after Sept. 4.

Some managers despair when they have to break in more than one rookie per season. Francona melded 17 first-year players into his championship unit.

The Pythagorean data supports Francona’s selection. The Guardians’ 92 victories were four more than the data says they should have won. Only one other manager drove his team to beat the Pythagorean data by as many as four games, and that manager was the guy who ran second to Francona.

In many seasons, what Hyde did with the Orioles would have won the hearts and minds of most if not all MLB voters. Unanimous selections for another season in the AL East cellar, Hyde’s Orioles won 83 games – that’s 29 more than a season ago – and gave the city its first winning team since 2016.

You could quibble with the choice of Mariners manager Scott Servais as second runner-up. Seattle reached post-season play for the first time since 2001, but a good share of the credit for that achievement probably ought to have gone to GM Jerry DiPoto’s personnel decisions.

The Pythagorean case for Servais’ work was flat neutral. The Mariners won 90 games, exactly the number their on-field showing says they should have won.

Probably the two most overlooked AL managers both worked in the AL Central. It was a disappointing season on Chicago’s South Side, where Tony LaRussa labored until his health broke down to kick-start the favored White Sox. Still, it’s fair to note that as disappointing as Chicago’s season was, the Sox did out-perform their numbers by three games. LaRussa may have been doing something right.

The same is true of A.J. Hinch in Detroit. His Tigers went only 66-96, but the data says that was three games better than the Tigers should have played. Like LaRussa, Hinch got no love from MLB voters.

Grade: D

NL Manager of the Year voters figuratively mailed in their ballots – they very rotely nominated the managers of the three winningest teams – and in doing so wound up with the worst collective ballot of any of the major MLB awards.

Mets manager Buck Showalter won the honor, defeating Dodgers manager Dave Roberts with Braves manager Brian Snitker third. Looking strictly at those three nominees, he probably was most deserving.

It’s meant as no knock to any of those three to say that their lives were all made easier by the talent bases with which they were presented. In that respect it’s also worth noting that the Mets led the majors in payroll with the Dodgers running a close No. 2 and the Braves a respectable No. 8. Money doesn’t guarantee team success, but it also doesn’t hurt.

How should NL ballots have looked? Different…very different.

Where was the name of Rob Thomson, who took over the Phillies in early June and turned their lackluster season into a championship one? Thomson’s team played .586 ball (65-46) from June 3 on, not bad considering that they were a .431 (22-29) team up to that point.

Because voting is held prior to the start of the post-season, Thomson gets no credit for leading the Phillies to the National League pennant. But his achievement in driving such a disorganized club into the post-season alone should have gotten him better than fifth place among voters.

Then there’s the matter of Bob Melvin, manager of the Padres. He took a team with a long history of choking away its talent base – especially against the division-rival Dodgers – and made the post-season with 89 wins.

More to the point, he did it without team megastar Fernando Tatis Jr. playing even a single inning. And to top that off, just as Tatis was expected to return in early August, it was revealed that he had failed a drug test and would have to sit out another half season.

That was the kind of development that might have shattered a clubhouse with a history of shattering. Instead, Melvin brought his Padres home 33-23 from Aug. 1 to the season’s end.

Finally, might someone have spared a kind word for Pirates manager Derek Shelton? I get that it’s hard to work up Manager of the Year credibility for the manager of a 100-loss team in a division as weak as the NL Central. But did you see what Shelton had to work with?

The statisticians did. The Pythagoreans made Shelton’s Pirates a 58-win team; they beat that number by four, putting Shelton on a statistical pedestal matched only by Francona and Hyde.

Grade: A-

The selection of Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez was a layup, and the voters didn’t miss it.

In his debut, Rodriguez batted .284 with a .509 slugging average, an .853 OPS, 28 home runs, 25 steals and a 6.2 WAR. That worked out to a 147 OPS+, meaning Rodriguez was worth nearly 1.5 times the value of the average MLB player. He was seventh in WAR, eighth in slugging and first among rookies in both.

As a result, he got all but one of the first place votes and deservedly lapped the field.

The contest between Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman and Cleveland outfield Steven Kwan for spear-carrier to Rodriguez was a narrow one that ultimately went to Rutschman.

By the objective numbers, Kwan probably deserved to finish second, but since Rutschman plays the more critical defensive position his elevation above Kwan by AL voters is at least defensible.

Looking purely at WAR, Kwan finished at 5.5 to Rutschman’s 5.2. That’s not a definitive margin of superiority. Personally, I would have ranked Kwan’s season ahead of Rutschman’s due to the role he played as the instigator of Cleveland’s revolutionary small-ball offensive style. Kwan batted .298, he had a .772 OPS and either walked or put the ball in play an extraordinary 90.5 percent of the time.

Rutschman’s comparables were .254, .806, and 81.7 percent, so he beat Kwan at the power game but lagged in average and contact. Defensively, both were good; Rutschman piled up 18 defensive runs saved at catcher, Kwan got to 15 DRS playing the easier position of left field.

There was really only one other legitimate candidate, Houston shortstop Jeremy Pena, who the voters pegged a distant fifth (Royals infielder Bobby Witt picked up enough sympathy votes to come in fourth.)

At 4.8, Pena trailed both Kwan and Rutschman in WAR. He also trailed them in average (.253) and OPS (715) and he struck out 135 times, a little more than twice as frequently as Kwan in 80 fewer plate appearances.

Grade: A+

Happily, the winning of this award by Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara was a foregone conclusion long before it was made official Wednesday night.

Taking nothing away from runners-up Max Fried and Julio Urias, but any other outcome would have been a travesty.

At +8.0, Alcantara led the NL in pitcher WAR by two full games (over Aaron Nola, +6.0). He was as far ahead of Nola as Nola was ahead of Corbin Burnes (+4.0) back in 13th place.

Alcantara’s superiority was forged both on his performance and his workload. Begin with the latter. Alcantara pitched 228.2 innings during the season, 23.2 innings (11.5 percent) more than anybody else in the league.

Again, comparisons provide perspective. In terms of innings pitched, the gap between Alcantara and the runner-up (Nola) was as wide as the gap between Nola and the guy back in 12th place, German Marquez.

But it wasn’t just workload. Alcantara built on that huge advantage by finishing second (2.28) to Urias (2.16) in ERA and first in Win Probability Added (5.4).

He added six complete games in 2022. That was twice as many as any MLB team, the Phillies and Cardinals staffs both completing three games.

In the matter of Fried versus Urias, voters justifiably gave the nod to the Atlanta pitcher. Urias had the better ERA (2.16 to Fried’s 2.48), but again workload is a major tipping point. In pitching, you get participation points.

Fried produced 185.1 innings of labor for the Braves, 10 more than Urias. That’s basically one full game. Urias did have a slightly better win-loss record (17-7 vs. Fried’s 14-7). But hey, wins were cheap in LA this season.

Beyond that, Fried had the better WAR, 5.9 to Urias’ 4.9. In fact, both Nola (6.0) and San Francisco’s Carlos Rodon (5.4) should have figured in the WAR mix. All that got them was a distant fourth (for Nola) and a more distant sixth (for Rodon, behind Zac Gallon) in the voting.

Grade: B+

Giving AL Cy Young voters credit for handing the Cy Young Award to Justin Verlander feels a bit like handing out grades of A on a math test where 90 percent of the questions were “how much is 2 + 2?”

Obviously, Verlander deserved the award. He led the AL with 18 wins against just four losses, he also led with a 1.75 ERA and his 220 ERA+ even made Sabermetricians smile…to the extent they do that sort of thing.

If you wanted to find a dent in the Verlander armor, you could do so…but you’d be seen as argumentative. Let’s do so just for the fun of it. At 5.9, he only tied Alex Manoah for third in pitching WAR, behind Dylan Cease (6.4) and Shohei Ohtani (6.2). Verlander’s WAR total lagged due to his ordinary workload: he turned in just 175 innings, 26 fewer than teammate Framber Valdez, who led the league.

Was there a case for Cease, who finished second in the overall voting? Well, his own workload (184 innings) wasn’t exactly taxing; he ranked 10th in the league in that category. He did finish second to Verlander in ERA, but it was a distant second, at 2.20, nearly a half point behind the winner’s 1.75.

To fall back on comparisons again, the margin distancing Verlander from Cease in ERA was greater than the margin separating Cease from Tampa’s Shane McClanahan in fifth place.

The selection of Manoah as a finalist ahead of Ohtani was a marginal call. Ohtani (6.2 to 5.9) had the slightly higher WAR, and of their ERAs (2.24 for Manoah, 2.33 for Ohtani) there was little to choose. Manoah’s principal advantage, then, lay back in that old standard, workload. He completed 196.1 innings on the mound, Ohtani stopped at 166. Showing up is a beautiful thing, although in fairness to Ohtani, he was otherwise occupied.

We’ll save that part of the argument for consideration of the MVP vote.

Grade: D

You could make an argument that the most valuable player in the National League was not even nominated for Most Valuable Player in the National League.

We’re talking here about Sandy Alcantara, the unanimous Cy Young Award choice. The case for Alcantara as MVP is not at all clear-cut, the case for his consideration as a finalist most definitely is.

Here’s that case. At 8.0, he had the league’s best WAR. He also delivered the highest Win Probability Added, at 5.4. The WAR calculation was close enough to be gray; Nolan Arenado came in at 7.9, just a tick behind Alcantara. But the WPA score was not close; Alcantara beat the runner-up, Paul Goldschmidt, by more than half a game (5.4 to 4.7).

By other measures, the contest is closer. Batters hit 33 percentage points below the league average against Alcantara…but the three finalists (Arenado, Goldschmidt, and Manny Machado) all beat the league average by at least 50 points, 74 in the case of Goldschmidt, the batting champion.

The same was true of the other slash line elements. Alcantara over-performed the league average in restricting opponents on base average by 51 percentage points. But Goldschmidt over-performed the league average by 70 points and Machado by 52. (Arenado only beat the league average by 44 points.

Alcantara held opponents 76 points under the league slugging average. But all three of the finalists over-performed that average by a minimum of 135 points (in the case of Arenado) and as much as 180 (in the case of Goldschmidt).

With 886 batter-pitcher confrontations during the season, Alcantara was also a much more consistent presence in determining game outcomes than any of the finalists, of whom Goldschmidt (651) had the most. That’s 36 percent more batter-pitcher outcomes than the highest of the actual finalists.

None of these numbers produce a clear MVP choice, but they all confirm that Alcantara at least should have been solidly in the mix. Just to pick on Machado, Alcantara beat him in WAR, WPA, and Base-Out Runs Saved, another measure of contribution to victory.

Instead, voters made the Marlins pitcher a forgotten 10th, with only three of 30 voters even including him among their top five. His vote total was about one-tenth that of Goldschmidt.

Why wasn’t Alcantara given stronger consideration? The answers, silly as they seem, are obvious. First, he’s a pitcher, and MVP voters blatantly discriminate against pitchers. It’s their nature. Among 19 players who got at least one MVP vote, only four were pitchers.

Second, he played for a losing team. In the eyes of most voters, Alcantara couldn’t be Most Valuable because Jacob Stallings, Miguel Rojas, and Avisail Garcia stunk.

That’s not much of an argument, but it’s all the voters have.

Grade: A

In the Judge-Ohtani debate, we visit the relative merits of pitching and hitting, but this time with the twist that Ohtani is actually a two-way player.

Let’s begin with Judge, the simpler case since all he does is hit.

Judge produced a 10.6 WAR. As previously noted, WAR is an approximation of relative contribution, so it isn’t necessarily determinative. In this case, however, it’s compelling. Considering only the offensive portion of the game, the next best total behind Judge was Andres Gimenez in Cleveland, and he was back at 7.4. Ohtani? He stopped at just 3.4 WAR for his offense.

Of course, Ohtani did more than slug, he also made other people unslug. On the mound, Ohtani added 6.2 WAR to his MLB season. But that only brought him to 9.6 WAR, still a full point short of Judge.

If we turn to Win Probability Added, Ohtani is credited with 5.6, counting both his offense and mound work. But Judge hits 8.1. There’s no real need to look deeper than those two categories; in a two-way contest of value Judge plainly wins.

Yordan Alvarez had a wonderful year, and although voters don’t consider this it was capped with a World Series win. But in terms of value added, he is a clear and deserving third. He measured 6.8 WAR and 5.1 WPA, ranking third and second respectively in the two categories. As a combo DH-left fielder, he accrues no supplementary points for defensive work.