Would the Triple Crown Award have Helped J.D. Martinez Win the MVP-Award?

     After the Boston Red Sox signed J.D. Martinez last offseason, the team’s offense went from last in the American League in home runs, second-to-last in slugging percentage and 11^th out of 15 teams in on-base plus slugging (OPS) to first in batting average, slugging, OPS, runs and sixth in home runs. The addition of Martinez, the only major addition to the team’s lineup who also produced 43 home runs and 130 RBI along with a stat line of .330/.402/.629, led many to believe that Martinez had revitalized the Red Sox lineup and brought them from worst to first in most major categories. Although Mookie Betts, who eventually won the American League Most Valuable Player award, led the league in runs, batting average, slugging and finished second in on-base percentage, one can perfectly validate that the addition of Martinez put the Red Sox over the hump. The addition of Martinez was like the addition of Curt Schilling back in 2004. The Red Sox had Pedro Martinez, an ace, but a significant upgrade to their No. 2 starter ultimately put the team over the threshold and into the title of World Series Champions.

            This left fans and I in outcry when they found out Martinez, who many thought would win the MVP award, was not even a finalist for the award. 

JD Martinez not being a finalist for AL MVP is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life

— Steve Perrault (@Steve_Perrault) November 5, 2018

Ok so let me get this straight. JD Martinez was left off the ballot for the 3 finalists for AL MVP. Jose Ramirez made it over him

JD Martinez:
BA: .330
HR: 43
RBI's: 130

Jose Ramirez:
BA: .270
HR: 39
RBI's: 105

Does anyone else see the issue here? FIX THIS ISSUE

— Willie J. (@wvizoso411) November 6, 2018

In the era of shifts, launch angles and “home run or bust” mentality, Martinez bucks the trend. An all-around hitter, the Red Sox hadn’t seen a player hit at least 40 home runs, 100 RBIs and .300 in a season since Manny Ramirez did so back in 2004. Even after an historic performance in an era of baseball founded on this “home run or bust” mentality, and after finishing second in two out of three triple crown categories while finishing first in the third, Martinez finished fourth in the AL MVP voting.

            Martinez deserves applause for finishing second in two triple crown categories and first in the third. But what if Martinez had finished first in all three categories, making him the first player to win the triple crown since Miguel Cabrera did so in 2012. Would that have made a difference in the voting, ultimately propelling Martinez into first place?

            Out of 12 major league players that have won the triple crown award, seven have won the MVP award for their respective league. Sixty-three percent of triple crown winners have won the MVP award for that season when factoring in the 1922 season when the national league had no MVP honored but had Rogers Hornsby win the triple crown award. Every player since 1956 that has won the triple crown also won the MVP award for their respective league. The voting wasn’t even close in each of those cases either.

            In 2012, Cabrera took home 22 out of 28 first place votes and finished 81 points higher than second-place finisher Mike Trout. The separation gets more and more going down the list. In 1967, Carl Yastrzemski took home all but one first place vote and out-paced second-place finisher Harmon Killebrew by 114 points. In 1996, triple crown winner Frank Robinson earned all 20 first-place votes with a 127-point gap between first and second place. In 1956, triple crown winner Mickey Mantle earned all 24 first-place votes and finished 150 points higher than second-place finisher and teammate Yogi Berra. Yes, I worked backwards which means that the gap is closing between triple crown winners and MVP winners, but winning the triple crown, after leading all three categories at one point during the season, would have helped Martinez. But would it have mattered?

            In the last 10 years, within the American League, the player that ranked highest in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) has won the award six out of 10 times, or 60 percent of the time. This makes sense because, if WAR measures the value of a player over another, then the leader in the category should win the award. For people that believe in statistics only, they preach this approach and it shows. Since 2013, the year where many analysts and voters argued between Miguel Cabrera, the league’s best all-around hitter and Mike Trout, the American League’s WAR leader winning the award because of that argument, the American League WAR-leader has won the award four-out-of-five times. The only one to win the MVP-award during that time and not lead the league in WAR was Josh Donaldson, who had almost identical offensive numbers to WAR-leader Mike Trout. Trout had a better WAR because of his defense. He went the entire season without committing an error while Donaldson committed 18 errors in 2015.

            Martinez might be baseball’s best overall hitter. In an era of baseball centered around the idea that hitters must hit a home run to get the ball by the defensive shift, Martinez played the role of all-around hitter, like Manny Ramirez did in 2004, or like Mantle in the 50s and 60s, or even (dare I say) Barry Bonds of the 90s. If Martinez won the triple crown, would he have won the MVP award as well? If the WAR statistic is around, no one will know.

Tracking how much Red Sox players have made per game so far this season

A topic on 98.5 the Sports Hub's midday show, Zolak and Bertrand sparked an interest in me.

The two co-hosts, Scott Zolak and a voice filling in for Mark Bertrand whose voice I couldn’t figure out and didn’t stay long enough to hear their name, talked about Major League Baseball attracting more players to its Home Run Derby by offering $1 million to its winner. The show’s producer, Jim Louth, introduced the topic, which eventually turned into Zolak shooting the idea down. When Louth stated that the winner would make $1 million for two hours of work, Zolak stated that players make that anyway. Louth quickly shot that notion down.

Obviously, Zolak was wrong. Anybody can do the math in their head to prove that if a player makes as much at $30 million, and because teams expect positional players to play in 150 games or so, a positional player will play between 450-600 hours of baseball per year. That’s $50,000 an hour for someone making $30 million per year and less, obviously, for someone that makes less. Pitchers don’t make much more or less.

The topic made me wonder though: How much does each Red Sox player really make per hour or per game?

Well, I did the math out. Some numbers initially surprised me, such as Andrew Benintendi making $4,125.30 per game played as well as David Price making $955,263.16 per game played. 

I performed the math for each Red Sox player on the 25 man roster as well as important players currently on the disabled list (Christian Vazquez, Dustin Pedroia, Drew Pomeranz, etc.).

Before I share with you how much each Red Sox player made per game played, I have to share with you how I figured each number and some aberrations to the formula.

So, to get dollars earned per game played, I factored that 98 games played is 60 percent of the season. Therefore, each player will have received 60.5 percent of their salary and thus, is divided amongst each game played. Here is an example.

Andrew Benintendi will earn $605,000 this season according to spotrac.com. 60.5 percent of that number becomes $375,402.50. Benintendi has played in 91 games this season, therefore $375,402.50 gets spread across 91 games, which equates to $4,125.30 per game played. In math terms:

$605,500 x .605 / 91 = $4,125.30.

Of course, some aberrations occur, such as Ryan Brazier earning $82,431.25 per game played. It’s unrealistic because Brazier earns a portion of his $545,000 only when he is on the Major League roster. Brazier has been on the Red Sox 25 man roster for only 10 days and has appeared in four games. So of course his salary per game is crooked and not reflective of his actual salary. Also, pitchers appear in less games than positional players and starting pitchers even less than relievers. If a pitcher and batter both make $1 million and the pitcher pitches in 50 games and the batter plays in 150 games, of course the batter will make less per game even though they make the same amount of money and most likely spent the same amount of time on the 25 man roster. So it is not an exact science, but it’s pretty darn close. I created this spreadsheet for your enjoyment, which depicts how much each Red Sox player has earned per game played. Salaries are based on spotrac.com and rounded to the nearest hundredth.
You can access the spreadsheet here

OOTP: May brings DFA of Ramirez, Sale struggles and draft class revealed

April showers bring May flowers, but what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims.  Thank you! Thank you! I’ll be here all night!

Now that I’ve got the joke out of the way, May is a rather down time in baseball. As far as trades and player movement goes, not much happens. Players generally know their role, the closer carousel figures itself out and the surprises of the season become the norm at this point.

It wasn’t surprising when the team started the month off 3-2. That moved us to 14-20 on the year. Still not ideal but a step in the right direction. I’m thoroughly impressed with David Price and Craig Kimbrel so far this season. Price sports a 4-3 at this point of the season and has pitched 46.2 innings in seven games with a 2.51 ERA. Batters are hitting .172 against him and he has a 0.75 WHIP. Kimbrel has seven saves to this point and has been lights out. In 11.2 innings, he has a 0.77 ERA (one earned run) and opponents are hitting .081 against him. The combo has been lights out and I’m loving it because I’m actually a huge David Price fan. When Price is going, he’s the key to the team winning the World Series. And with Chris Sale 1-4 with a 6.03 ERA, that’s the reason why the team is six games under .500.

When Tyler Thornburg came back on May 5, I designated Brian Johnson for assignment. Johnson just wasn’t doing it. He had a 6.20 ERA and a negative WAR. While the easiest option would have been to send Bobby Poyner back to Pawtucket, Poyner actually has a 2.57 ERA in seven innings with opponents batting .222 against him. He’s a better fit for the bullpen and it allows Steven Wright to move back to the rotation.

In case you were wondering, this was the top players in the draft class.

I’m not a huge believer in the top player projections. I go for more of the potential star ratings when drafting. I usually match the players that the game projects to reach five stars and my scout projects to reach five stars and draft those players. But the list is always handy to have by one’s side.

On May 7, I made one of the hardest decisions I had to make so far in my tenure. Dustin Pedroia came back from the disabled list. Fitting him onto my roster was kind of hard. I didn’t want to get rid of Brock Holt because of his positional flexibility and because he was hitting .284 with a positive WAR. I didn’t want to get rid of a guy like Blake Swihart or release a player with multiple years left on their contract (Mitch Moreland, Eduardo Nunez, etc.). So I released DFA’d Hanley Ramirez, who was hitting .154 in 14 games. Taking on another dead contract wasn’t ideal, but without positional flexibility and without giving any productivity, Ramirez had to go.

Halfway through the month, my team is 18-25 and 7-7 in the month of May. Good enough for fourth place in the American League East in front of the New York Yankees. I can pinpoint the exact reasons why the team is under achieving. Reason one is Chris Sale. He is 1-5 with a 6.23 ERA at this point. Hitters are hitting .322 against him with a 1.7 HR/9 rate. What’s interesting is his fielding independent pitching is 3.76, meaning he’s actually pitching great outside the defense around him. Secondly is Rick Porcel-blow, I mean Porcello. He’s 2-5 with a 6.39 ERA with opponents hitting .322 against him. His FIP is 6.76, meaning, his fielders are actually make him better, which seems hard to do because of how bad he currently is pitching. When combining two top tier and top paid pitchers performing badly with a team that is 13^th in the American League in runs scored and 14^th in home runs, that will cause a sub .500 team right there. No excuses, we just have to do better. Unfortunately, this is a computer game so I can’t give the players a pep talk or call a meeting.

On a small note, on May 16 after our 6-0 win against the Oakland A’s Joe Kelly went on the DL with a dead arm. I called up Roenis Elias again. In that game, Sale actually went six innings and gave up zero runs in the win. Make me eat my words Sale! Make me!

On May 28, I received an email from the league about Andrew McCutchen, who will miss an “indefinite amount of time” for “personal issues.” Quite the shame for the Giants because McCutchen had hit 12 home runs up until that point with 39 RBIs and a .298 batting average.

As for us, we ended the month on a three game losing streak. Our record is 26-31. Not good. On to June.