Justin Verlander – MVP?

For a pitcher to win the MVP award these days requires something truly special. The last starter to win do so was Roger Clemens in 1986.

That year Clemens posted a 24-4 record with a WHIP of 0.97 and an ERA of 2.48 while striking out 238 hitters and holding opponents to a .195 batting average. Clemens went fewer than 7 innings just 6 times all year, helping the Red Sox to a division title and an appearance in the World Series.

In both 1999 and 2000 the great Pedro Martinez put together staggeringly good, Cy Young winning seasons and came second and fifth in the MVP award after several voters left him off the ballot entirely because they considered the MVP to be a “hitters only” award what with the pitcher only Cy Young award in existence.

And now Justin Verlander is putting together a season worthy of serious consideration.

Verlander has maybe 5 starts left in the 2011 regular season, and with Detroit currently holding a 6 game lead in the AL Central it could be less. But what he’s done this year is nothing short of staggering.

His stat line looks like this:

His WHIP, strike outs and Innings lead the American League and his WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is a league leading 7.4. This indicates that without Justin Verlander the Detroit Tigers would currently be behind both the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox.

In the strict definition of “Most Valuable Player” there is certainly a compelling argument to be made that Verlander is just that. But just how valuable is a player who only takes to the field every fifth game?

The American League is full of worthy MVP candidates; with Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and Adrian Gonzalez in Boston, Curtis Granderson in New York and Jose Bautista in Toronto having outstanding seasons. And they all play in every game for their teams.

So how does one compare the value an excellent starter like Verlander to the production a daily starter provides?

Sabremetrics, or advanced statistics, can provide help provide an answer. Sites such as fangraphs.com and baseball-reference.com (BR) are like holy texts for baseball geeks such as myself. They provide easy access to stats that provide a deeper insight into the game.

For example a quick check shows the league average of runs per game to be 4.26. However, BR shows us that a team of 9 Jacoby Ellsbury’s would score 7.2 runs a game while Justin Verlander’s FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) suggested he’d concede 2.73 runs a game. This suggests that Ellsbury creates roughly 1 run per 27 outs more than Verlander saves per 27 outs (against league average).

Is this getting complicated yet? Well it should be, and we haven’t even considered what would happen if a team of Ellsbury’s took on a team of Verlander’s yet…

So you see the problem? There’s no clear way of telling if a pitcher or a hitter is actually more valuable. It often comes down to what you see during games and how you feel about the value added by a guy performing in just 7+ Innings in a 5 game span or getting around 22 plate appearances spread across all 5 games.

Personally, in one game the starting pitcher is the most important player on the team, but across a 162 game season the balance swings more in favour of an every-day hitter.

Do I think Justin Verlander deserves to win the MVP? At the moment no (but only just). 3 or 4 more dominant starts could easily change that. For me the injustice done to Pedro’s ’99 & ’00 performances means the bench mark for MVP-worthy pitchers is incredibly high. But I do know, as a Red Sox fan, the prospect of facing Verlander twice in the 5 game divisional series is terrifying.

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