What's On Your Mantelpiece?

First, let me say that the word Mantelpiece was not named for or after the great Yankee center fielder, and particularly not after any body part. No, what we're talking about are shiny trophies that could adorn said mantelpiece by Christmastime for the hard working boys of the summer of 2001. The dog days of August are dwindling down and with only five weeks and a bit to go, the opportunity for anyone out of the top ten to make an impact is just about down to zero.

I'll start today with the MVP races. We all know that the voters of the BBWAA are traditional stats guys at heart, so there are two aspects to predicting or selecting winners. First, there's the "who ought to win the award?" argument. Then there's the "who will the BBWAA pick?" question. The former is pretty much a moot point, as there's nothing anyone can do about it. I prefer to take the approach of estimating who the BBWAA will most likely select and then see if it seems reasonable.

The primary measures of the traditionalists are the three triple crown stats: batting average, home runs and RBIs, not necessarily in that order. While these things may be ridiculed on occasion, ranking players by those three items rarely produces a total clunker. One wrinkle that voters seem to have added in recent years is an awareness of positional value. Last year, the voters seemed to recognize that Jeff Kent's power from second base was more valuable than a similar performance from an outfielder.

As I have done in the past, I've taken this year's leading lights and awarded 100 points to the leader in each of those categories, and awarded points to the other guys in proportion. Thus, if Billy Joe Bob Smith is leading the league in homers with 50, he gets 100 points, while Jimmy Jack Jones with 40 homers gets 80 points. If a player was leading in all three categories he would have a maximum of 300 points.

To account for the positional differences, I've added 50 points for SS and C, 40 for 2B, 30 for 3B, 20 for outfielders, 10 for 1B and zero for DHs. That's according to my totally arbitrary points system. So what does that get us?

Here are the top ten MVP candidates in the AL:

When I made this list and sorted it, I really didn't expect Alex Rodriguez to head the list, and certainly not by a healthy margin. The 50 shortstop points I added certainly help, but I also believe they're well deserved. Bret Boone is no surprise, being well up in average and RBIs, lagging only in home runs. The 40 positional points for being a 2B don't hurt, either. Then we have the usual suspects, Thome, with the highest unadjusted score, Gonzalez, Ramirez, Giambi. Tejada, Posada, Rodriguez and Glaus are all certainly valuable, but they aren't going to beat out the six guys above them.

At this point we need to invoke the "contending team rule. That is, any player not on a contending team is ineligible unless his case is incredibly compelling and there are no good candidates from contending teams. With Boone, Gonzalez, Thome and Ramirez all close and on teams that don't suck, I think we can safely eliminate Alex Rodriguez despite the great year. The other factor that hurts him is that Texas had such a horrible start they've been out of contention since the April tax return deadline.

It doesn’t help Gonzalez and Thome that they will probably split the Cleveland vote for MVP. Meanwhile, Bret Boone has been helped by Edgar Martinez stint on the DL because it keeps his raw totals significantly higher. I'd say the race at this point is down to Ramirez, Boone and Giambi, with the race too close to call and totally dependent on which one has the best stretch drive.

Over in the NL, we have to invoke the surliness rule, whereby we deduct points from Barry Bonds because the press don't like his attitude. It may seem strange, but I don't know of anyone that likes the press' attitude, of course...

Really, the NL MVP should be a romp for Bonds, except for one thing. Despite the gaudy OPS (.486 OBP and .824 SLG - wow!) and phenomenal number of homers, he just hasn't made the headway in the other triple crown stats that you might expect. He only ranks fourth in RBIs and is way down the batting average list. According to my scoring system, he's pretty much in a three way tie with Sammy Sosa and Luis Gonzalez. Of the trailing pack, we can discount Todd Helton and Larry Walker for Coors effect, and Lance Berkman for Enron effect. Beyond that I don't see anyone picking Shawn Green (having a nice year), Phil Nevin or Rich Aurilia over the big guns, and Chipper Jones isn't making enough headway to compete this year.

Now, as I've said before, Bonds should totally romp this award, but if he fails to beat 70 homers, and the Giants don't make the playoffs, don't be shocked if the BBWAA decides he's an arrogant, surly choker and decide to give it to Gonzalez or Sosa instead.

Got a favorite MVP candidate you don't see featured here? Wondering why Derek Jeter isn't on the list? Why not Dave Paisley a line and give him an earful at drdjp@strikethree.com?

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