The Futility Infielder

As promised, here's the ballot I cast in the Internet Baseball Awards. Most of my choices are informed by various metrics at Baseball Prospectus, among them Value Above Replacement Player (VORP), Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), Support Neutral Lineup Adjusted Value Above Replacement for starting pitchers, Reliever Expected Wins Added, and the recently introduced Win Expectancy Added. But circumstances such as a team's status as a contender, time missed due to injury, and other factors make all of these what they are, one person's subjective judgement using objective measures as a guide but not the be-all and end-all. It's easy enough to fill a ballot out 1-10 ranking players by WARP or VORP, but basing everything on one number -- even one well thought out, all-encompassing number -- isn't what this is about.

Also, it's important to remember that this vote was based entirely on the regular season results, not anything that happened in the brutally small sample size of the opening round of the playoffs or beyond.

AL MVP
1. Alex Rodriguez 2. David Ortiz 3. Jhonny Peralta 4. Mariano Rivera 5. Travis Hafner 6. Vladimir Guerrero 7. Brian Roberts 8. Derek Jeter 9. Paul Konerko 10. Mark Teixeira

Again, forget the postseason for a moment -- I'll be picking that over from the Yankees' standpoint soon enough -- because this is only about the regular season. The Yankee gets the nod over the Red Sock in a race that literally kept me awake at night thinking about. I'm sure I'll be accused of bias here, but I'm comfortable with my reasoning.

Even with slightly below-average defense (a 95 Rate2, meaning he was five runs below average per 100 games), A-Rod finished with 10.2 WARP (note this is WARP1, used to compare within the same season), Big Papi with 8.0. James Click's Win Expectancy numbers (updated via email) show the latter with 7.3 WINS -- the fractional improvement in his team's chances of winning before and after each of his at-bats -- the most in baseball, with Rodriguez third in the AL and ninth overall at 4.7 (Hafner was second in the AL at 4.8). That closes the gap considerably, and might be grounds for favoring the latter, but then we don't have any measure of the Win Expectancy produced by Rodriguez's defense, and that might be worth something as well.

Both players, for whatever it's worth, were essentially equal against their rival teams (.934 OPS for A-Rod, .939 for Ortiz). But in the end, Rodriguez's 4-for-5 performance in Fenway on October 1, the game in which the Yankees clinched the AL East, was enough to seal the deal. It didn't end up meaning much in terms of playoff opponents or home field advantage, but it did force the Sox to use Curt Schilling in Game 162, thereby slotting him for a turn against the White Sox that never came. That's tangible, and from the standpoint of a Schilling hater, it fills me with warm fuzzies, too. Advantage: Rodriguez.

As for the rest, both Hafner and Peralta deserved recognition for the Indians' great season. Rivera's 9.4 WARP put him in the mix for a middle spot on the ballot. Jeter's 8.8 WARP was tempered by the fact that according to Win Expectancy, he was one of the 20 most UN-clutch players in the majors this year. Brian Roberts was fantastic, particularly in the first half, and then suffered a career-threatening injury against the Yanks in late September.

NL MVP
1. Derrek Lee 2. Albert Pujols 3. Jason Bay 4. Morgan Ensberg 5. Andruw Jones 6. Jim Edmonds 7. Miguel Cabrera 8. Brian Giles 9. Chase Utley 10. David Wright

Two years ago I refused to put A-Rod (who finally one the award after several years as an also-ran) first on my ballot because playing for Texas, he was a fair distance away from relevance, the Lone Ranger. I was prepared to consign Lee to the same fate until noting that he had a 1.6 WARP edge on Pujols and 5.3 WINS (3rd in the NL), while Pujols, with about 3.6 WINS, was among the unclutch. Andruw Jones, at 7.9 WARP, was nowhere near as valuable as his 51 homers would lead one to believe (his defense declined by about a win), but I did boost him a few notches based on his importance to the Braves at a time when everything else seemed to be crumbling around him. Jason Bay very quietly had a spectacular season that -- though it took place in Pittsburgh, which at best can boast the beds where the Cardinals slept several times -- deserves some recognition.

AL Cy Young
1. Johan Santana 2. Roy Halladay 3. Mariano Rivera 4. Kevin Millwood 5. Francisco Rodriguez

Last year's winner is in good shape to rack up another Cy. Santana led the AL with 7.6 SNLVAR, well ahead of the number two, Bartolo Colon (6.7), who himself was well ahead of Halladay (6.0), who broke his leg in his final start before the All-Star Game. It's impossible to ignore what Halladay did in his half-season; he was still leading all AL pitchers in VORP and SNVLAR into September. Colon and his teammate John Lackey might deserve to be in the mix, as do a few White Sox (John Garland 6.0 SNLVAR, Mark Buehrle 5.7). I'll take Millwood, the rock of the Indians' staff sandwiched between the AL's two highest ranking relievers (who I flip-flopped here on the strength of Rivera's three-win advantage in WARP despite half-win deficit in WXRL).

NL Cy Young
1. Roger Clemens 2. Andy Pettitte 3. Dontrelle Willis 4. Chris Carpenter 5. Pedro Martinez

Much as I'd like to vote for somebody besides the guy with seven Cy Youngs already on his mantle -- Dontrelle, perhaps -- the gap between Clemens and everybody else here is too much to ignore. Clemens led the NL with a 9.4 SNLVAR (Support Neutral Lineup Adjusted Value Above Replacement), Willis, Carpenter, and Pettitte are virtually tied at 8.6, then Roy Oswalt (another Astro) at 7.7, then Pedro at 7.6. Carpenter's late-season fade and Pettitte's fine second half helped sort out the runners-up.

AL Rookie of the Year
1. Joe Blanton 2. Robinson Cano 3. Huston Street

A bumper crop of rookies in the AL, but ultimately it's the two A's who put up the most value, and how far down would the A's have finished without them? Cano gets a a boost for a spectacular September and a clear edge over the not-pictured Tadahito Iguchi, who was even worse defensively but very solid overall for the White Sox. Also receiving strong consideration were Jonny Gomes, Felix Hernandez, Gustavo Chacin, and Chien-Ming Wang.

NL Rookie of the Year
1. Jeff Francoeur 2. Ryan Howard 3. Zach Duke

By contrast, the NL was a much weaker crop. Duke would get the edge on raw value (4.4 WARP in 14 starts, compared to 2.9 in 70 games for Francoeur and 3.2 in 88 games for Howard), but the relevance of the Brave and the Phillie to their respective teams' playoff chases was impossible to ignore.

AL Manager of the Year
1. Ozzie Guillen 2. Eric Wedge 3. Joe Torre

I loathe Guillen's predilection for small-ball and find his personality abrasive, but somewhere the bill comes due for a team that exceeded its third-order winning projection by 12 games, and I'll hand it to the White Sox manager. He did a fantastic job of handling his pitching staff, not the least part of which was nurturing Jose Contreras into being a top-flight starter, and he built a strong bullpen that was able to adapt to the injury of closer Dustin Hermanson. Wedge kept the surprising Indians in contention into the final days of the season; had the Indians pulled it off, the top spot here would be his. Torre took a deeply flawed team to the AL East title, but his handling of the bullpen and the bench made the race closer than it needed to be, and sowed the seeds of the team's demise in the playoffs.

NL Manager of the Year
1. Bobby Cox 2. Phil Garner 3. Ned Yost

For whatever Cox's flaws as an in-game tactician -- and as another Braves team goes down due to some questionable decisions in the Division Series -- he's a great manager for the 162-game haul, thanks in part to having Leo Mazzone by his side. With injuries galore, as many as 11 rookies on the roster, and a strong division in which every team finished at .500 or better, he had his work cut out for him, and he delivered. Garner took a team that lost Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Kent and Carlos Beltran -- not to mention 30 of its first 45 games -- back to the playoffs on the strength of a great pitching staff. Yost piloted the Brewers to their first non-losing season since 1992 and showed himself adept at handling a pitching staff in his own right. Frank Robinson might deserve a mention for keeping the Nationals in contention all year, but his refusal to keep sending Cristian Guzman and his penchant for writing out lineups that would shame your son's Little League team hampered the Nats' hopes for the Wild Card at too many critical junctures.

I'm interested to hear who my readers voted for in the IBA (or who you would have, if you had). So if you feel like sharing, drop your picks into the comments below.