Aaron Harvey conducted another Top 50 Most
Valuable Scoresheet Baseball Players poll this year culling votes mainly from the
most well known “expert” members of scoresheet-talk and mcscoresheet. The enthusiasm
level over this project has waned somewhat. The process was the same, but the
freshness was gone. Both the voter turn-out and the discussions regarding the
voting were down from last year. I don’t think we ever agreed concretely
to what exactly we were voting for – a start up team? Probably
so. A mock draft? Not quite. That we were never
able to get past that vagueness I think annoyed some of the experts. The rules
for nominating players to vote upon were haphazard. Even how we voted players
into the list seems due for refinement. The debate over what makes a baseball
player valuable in Scoresheet was squelched. And, this year there was no sign
of Nate Silver or Joe Sheehan to give the list its
celebrity expert caché.
By each player ranked I added a code describing
the accuracy of each 2007 ranking as by evidenced by their 2008 place on the
list. These codes are limited to “D” for “down” or a
disappointment, “S” for “same” or not surprising,
“U for “up” if the
player exceeded expectations, or “*” if the player was not even considered
last year.
Just to see if there is any pattern by age or
position as to whom the experts and I over-rated or under-rated, I made a three
dimensional chart with age, position, and rating change as the three axes. By
position, starting pitchers and first-basemen – DH types faired the worse.
The DH-1B disappointments lend a tiny bit of credence to the theory that
players with older player skills do not mature as well as players with younger
player skills. Or, does it indicate those are just players who most relied on
performance enhancers and are no longer getting their benefits? Admittedly that
is a long stretch and in either case, there was not nearly a large enough
sample to make any such conclusions. Who is to say whether those were matters
considered already by the voters in the first place?
Oddly, while the largest cluster of
disappointments were among the 24 to 25 year old pitchers, the only
age-position combo which had two nice surprises were 26 year old pitchers:
Sabathia and Haren. Plus, there was one surprisingly good 25 year old starter:
Jake Peavy. (Keep in mind more players rated or considered for ranking in 2007
were disappointing than surprisingly good.) Perhaps, this helps confirm that
pitchers are more unpredictable than position players. Safe injury
nexus? Of the eight pitchers (including one reliever) aged 28-31, only
one was upwardly moving in perceived future value (Bedard),
one stayed the same, and the rest were disappointing.
Regarding the unforeseen new stars, using their
2007 season ages, I counted three 21 year-olds, one 22 year-old, five 23
year-olds, two 24 year-olds, one 27 year-old and one 29 year-old. The two mature
players were both starting pitchers: Josh Beckett and Aaron Harang.
Only two other starting pitchers were in this “new star” group,
while all the other positions were represented once or twice except first-base
and designated hitter.
I give you Aaron Harvey’s Experts’
Top 50 for 2007 & 2008:
2007 Consensus Rankings
1) Albert Pujols 1B 27 S
2) Johan Santana SP 28 D
3) Miguel Cabrera 3B 23 S
4) Joe Mauer C
23 D
5) Grady Sizemore CF 24 S
6) Alex Rodriguez 3B 31 U
7) Chase Utley 2B 28
S
8) Carlos Beltran CF 30 S
9) David Wright 3B 24 U
10) Brian McCann C 23 D
11) Ryan Howard 1B 27 D
12) Mark Teixeira 1B 26 S
13) Travis Hafner
DH 29 D
14) Brandon Webb SP 27 S
15) Miguel Tejada SS 32 D
16) Andruw Jones CF 29 D
17) Lance Berkman 1B 31 D
18) Roy Oswalt SP 29
D
19) David Ortiz
1B 31 S
20) Vladimir Guerrero OF 31 S
21) Chris Carpenter SP 31 D
22) Jake Peavy SP 25
U
23) Jose Reyes SS 23
S
24) Jason Bay OF
28 D
25) Roy Halladay SP 29 D
26) Vernon Wells CF 28 D
27) Victor Martinez C 28 S
28) Alex Gordon
3B 23 D
29) Felix Hernandez SP 20 S
30) Ryan Zimmerman 3B
22 S
31) Carlos Zambrano SP 25 D
32) Jeremy Bonderman SP 24 D
33) Manny Ramirez OF 34 D
34) Derek Jeter SS 32 S
35) Ben Sheets SP 28
D
36) Daisuke Matsuzaka SP 26 D
37) CC Sabathia SP 26 U
38) Hanley Ramirez SS 23 U
39) John Lackey SP 28 S
40) Scott Kazmir SP 23 S
41) Justin Morneau 1B 25 D
42) Adam Dunn OF 27 S
43) Alfonso Soriano OF 31 S
44) Stephen Drew SS 24 D
45) Robinson Cano 2B 24 S
46) Justin Verlander SP 24 S
47) Howie Kendrick 2B 23 D
48) Garrett Atkins 3B 27 S
49) Aramis Ramirez 3B
28 S
50) Chipper Jones 3B 34 S
Receiving
votes on the last ballot were:
3v) Michael Young SS 30 D
2v) Bobby Abreu OF 33 D
2v) Carl
Crawford OF 25 S
2v) Rich Harden SP 25 D
2v) Dan Haren
SP 26 U
2v) Matt
Holliday OF 27 U
2v) Derek Lee
1B 31 S
1v) Matt Cain
SP 25 S
1v) Todd Helton 1B 33 D
1v) Chris Young CF 23 S
1v) Delmon Young OF 21 S
On
the last ballot Aaron included all the players with nominations:
Carlos Guillen SS 31
S
Phillip Hughes SP
20 S
Derek Lowe
SP 33 S
Jimmy Rollins
SS 28 U
Ichiro Suzuki OF-CF 33 S
Jered Weaver
SP 24 D
Dontrelle Willis SP 25 D
American
Leaguers I feel are more possibly deserving than some who were nominated or
voted for:
Erik Bedard
SP 28 U
Curtis Granderson OF 25 U
Adam Kinsler
2B 24 S
Adam Lind
OF 23 D
Nick Markakis
OF 23 U
Joe Nathan
RP 32 S
Francisco
Rodriguez RP 25 S
B.J. Ryan
RP 31 D
2008 Consensus Rankings
1. Pujols,
Albert 1B 28 S
2. Rodriguez, Alex 3B
32 U
3. Wright, David 3B
25 U
4. Cabrera, Miguel 3B
24 S
5. Sizemore, Grady OF
25 S
6. Santana, Johan SP
29 D
7. Utley, Chase 2B
29 S
8. Peavy, Jake SP
26 U
9. Ramirez, Hanley SS
24 U
10. Fielder, Prince 1B
24 U
11. Holliday, Matt OF
28 U
12. Teixeira, Mark 1B
27 S
13. Beltran, Carlos OF
31 S
14. Webb, Brandon SP 28 S
15. Tulowitzki, Troy SS 23 *
16. Reyes, Jose SS
24 S
17. Zimmerman, Ryan 3B
23 S
18. Granderson, C’rts CF 27 U
19. Mauer, Joe C 24 D
20. Braun, Ryan
3B-OF 24 *
21. Guerrero, Vlad OF 32 S
22. Sabathia, C.C. SP 28
U
23. Martinez,
Victor C 29 S
24. Beckett, Josh SP 28 *
25. Rollins, Jimmy SS 29 U
26. Howard, Ryan 1B 28 D
27. Kazmir, Scott SP 24 S
28. Hernandez, Felix SP 22 S
29. Ortiz, David DH 32 S
30. Hamels, Cole SP 24 *
31. Upton, B.J. OF 24 *
32. McCann, Brian C 24 D
33. Martin, Russell C 25 *
34. Ramirez, Aramis 3B 30 S
35. Cano, Robinson 2B 25 S
36. Verlander,
Justin SP 25 S
37. Oswalt, Roy SP 30 D
38. Bedard, Erik SP 29 U
39. Longoria, Evan 3B 22 *
40. Dunn, Adam OF 28 S
41. Haren, Dan SP 27 U
42. Berkman, Lance OF 32 D
43. Lackey, John SP 29 S
44. Markakis, Nick OF 25 U
45. Pence, Hunter OF 25 *
46. Young, Chris B. OF 24 S
47. Harang, Aaron SP 30 *
48. Gallardo, Yovani SP 22 *
49. Cain, Matt SP 23 S
50. Lincecum, Tim SP 24 U
Receiving
votes on the last ballot were:
3v. Pedroia, Dustin 2B 24 *
2v. Carmona, Fausto SP
24 *
On
the last ballot Aaron included all the players with nominations:
Nick Swisher OF-1B 27 *
American
Leaguers I feel are more possibly deserving than some who were nominated or voted for:
Javier Vazquez SP 31 *
Jamie Shields
SP
26 *
Carlos Pena
1B
30 *
Travis Hafner DH
31 D
Aaron Hill
2B
25 *
Jacob Ellsbury OF 24 *
Jon Papelbon
RP
26 *
Joe Nathan
RP
33 S
