MVP

The Pacific League is a no-brainer: Johjima, as you said.

The Central League is a little tougher. Imaoka was a shoe-in until he got hurt and missed a little more than a month. But then again, the Tigers had pretty much clinched by the time he went down, and no one really has been on the team day in/day out, except Akahoshi and Kanemoto (who are far from MVP material). So, does the award come down to how much of the season a player played, or how much influence the player had while he played? The Tigers have been less than impressive since Imaoka slumped, and subsequently got injured. It's pretty obvious that he's the spark that got the Tigers where they are.

Then again, Ramirez did have a monster year.

Johjima should get the Pacific League MVP without any doubt.

However, I am a little pessimistic as how they will choose the Central League MVP. I would like to see Ramirez get it, but I would not be suprised if it goes to Igawa, even though he is a pitcher. Anybody remember 1999, when Robert Rose of the BayStars had a monster year and no one player for the Dragons stood out? Chunichi ace pitcher Noguchi got the MVP with a 19-7 W-L record and an ERA of 2.65.

I hope the voters will by-pass all the winning team stuff and give it to Ramirez as he does deserve it.

Actually, Nikkan Sports doesn't think that the Pacific League MVP award is so straight forward. They seem to be pushing for 25 year old 19 game winner Saitoh Kazumi. He leads Matsuzaka 19 wins to 16, and is second to Matsuzaka in ERA (currently 2.92 to 2.80). He doesn't have nearly the strikes outs Matsuzaka has, so it'll be a long shot for the Sawamura Award, even if he does get a chance to improve his ERA.

I think that it's the press that votes for the MVP, and it looks like Nikkan has decided on Saitoh. That doesn't mean that Johjima won't win it, but that it's not nearly as clear cut as most would think.

I can't see how a pitcher who has only appeared in 25 of his team's games can be considered more valuable than a catcher who has played nearly every game, put up very impressive offensive numbers, and plays outstanding defense.

Saitoh has an ERA of 2.91, which is very good, but it's not something that would make me think he's the second coming of Sawamura.

- I think Johjima on Hawks is the best candidate for the award in the Pacific League.

Johjima certainly is deserving, but I don't think it's a runaway. Both Iguchi and Matsunaka are also deserving, as you can see below.

• Johjima: .332/.400/.597 (.997 OPS) with 34 HR, 119 RBI, 9 SB and 101 runs scored.


• Iguchi: .340/.438/.573 (1.011 OPS) with 27 HR, 109 RBI, 42 SB and 112 runs scored.


• Matsunaka: .322/.427/.566 (.993 OPS) with 29 HR, 121 RBI, 2 SB and 98 runs scored.

I think Iguchi's had the best season of the three -- his speed and power at second smacks of Alfonso Soriano -- but that kind of output from a catcher is hard to ignore. I think Jo will win as well.

Moving on the Central League, I'd give the nod to Imaoka if he'd stayed healthy all year. With him missing more than 20 games, however, I think Kanemoto should win.

Is it unfair to ignore pitchers? I would vote for Johjima and Igawa.

Ramirez had a wonderful year, but he has no title, no HR king, so I dont think he deserves it. Kanemoto is far from Ramirez.

When does the voting take place for the MVP? If they wait to do the voting until the regular season actually ends, I think Ramirez should have a real chance at the MVP as he actually finished tied for the HR title, won the RBI title, and finished second in the batting title race. He was only .007 percentage points from a triple crown.

Um. I was with you 'til the Kanemoto for MVP statement. His all around stats are down this year, especially power. He did play every day, and his OBP was relatively high, but he wasn't even the best player on his team.

If Imaoka's time off is too much, then Yano or Igawa.

If it were up to me, I'd give the award to Fukudome, the best position player in the Central League, IMO. We all know a Tiger is going to take home the hardware, though.

Back to the original discussion, Igawa could very well win MVP, but I'm in the pitchers-shouldn't-win-MVP-awards camp. Although Yano has had a solid season, Kanemoto's season has been better, at least in terms of runs created. Kanemoto has produced 99 to Yano's 85 -- probably because Kanemoto has played in 14 more games. In fact, Imaoka has 91 runs to his credit, so I'd give it to him before Yano.

I have neither the time nor enough data to calculate win shares for the three, but I have a feeling that Kanemoto would come out on top using that stat as well.

I'm rather busy with my latest project, but if you have the Win Shares book, early on it has the "short form," which you might be able to use profitably to compare the Tigers you mention.

Jim Albright

- I'm rather busy with my latest project, but if you have the Win Shares book, early on it has the "short form," which you might be able to use profitably to compare the Tigers you mention.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jim. I do have the Win Shares book so I'll check it out.

I look forward to reading your latest project. Any hints?

I'm redoing the top players, the franchise all-stars, and adding all-decade teams for each league using a system inspired by the short form of Win Shares. I had to modify it to keep the project size doable, but the results I'm getting are far more satisfactory than before, though somewhat similar.

The biggest aspect I had to ditch was doing the whole team to evaluate a single player. The big gain, though, is in the short form's defensive evaluation. I've modified it to deal with a number of issues, and while the defensive evaluation is still a bit of a blunt instrument, it gets the defensive evaluation to within at least 10-15% of where it should be.

Further, using this method uses a lot more data than the older method did, which also makes for a better rating scheme. I hope to get the articles coming out by the end of November. They'll come pretty fast once I start writing because I'm doing all the research for all the articles at the same time (once I get the full career into a spreadsheet, all I've got to do is manipulate it a little to fit decades and franchises).

As for the three Tigers you talked about, the only real pieces of data you'd need is defensive games by position for those three guys. You've already done runs created, and can use that, and you can abandon the team correction if you want without great distortion in view of the fact all three are on the same team and would have the same adjustment factor.

Jim Albright

I am not sure if they have an MVP Award in Japan. I know that they have a batting champion and a pitching champion. The batting championship goes to the the player (one for each league) with the highest batting average, and the pitcher with the lowest ERA wins the pitching championship.

I realy like the way they do that with their pitching. I do not care if a pitcher is 5-15; if he pitches a comparable number of innings to his competitors, a pitcher that has a 5-15 record with an ERA of 2.25 is clearly better than a pitcher that is 18-3 with a 2.95 ERA. I think that they should use the same criteria for determining the MLB Cy Young Award winner. Reason being, many of these sports writers do not know what they are talking/writing about. The best measure for a pitcher is his ERA. That's his performance, not what the team can do to help him.

Again, I am not sure if the Japanese league has an MVP. If they do, please correct me.

They do have MVP.

While I agree that wins are over-rated, I also think ERA is over-rated. It's been proven that a pitcher has no real control over what happens to a ball once it leaves a hitter's bat. A pitcher like Greg Maddux can see his BAA fluctuate from year to year, because hitters may "hit 'em where they ain't" a lot more one year than others.

Therefore, pitchers' real performance probably comes from WHIP, or simply Innings Pitched, Ks, BBs, and HRs given up.

I've changed my mind about who should get the MVP award in Central League. Igawa won his 20th game yesterday. He will also for sure win the ERA title this year. Perhaps he will get both the MVP award and the Sawamura award this season?

And Saitoh won his 20th game the day before Igawa won his, so should he get MVP? What's more, Saitoh tied Matsuzaka for first in ERA, both giving up 61 earned runs in 194 innings (neither team has any more regular season games left).

As for the Sawamura, Igawa struck out 179, which is getting close to 200, which is often the cut-off mark for the Sawamura Award. (The Giants' Uehara struck out 194 while fellow Giant and RoY hopeful Kisanuki struck out 180.) Saitoh only struck out 160, ranking third in the Pacific League behind Matsuzaka's 215 and Powell's 165. It seems to me that they'd rather not issue the award than to allow the strike out requirement fall so low. (No data on hand, just a feeling.) If it goes to anyone, it'll come down to Igawa and Matsuzaka (again).

Johjima still is the Pacific League MVP for me despite being overtaken for the RBI title in the last week by Matsunaka. A Japanese catcher with .300-30-100 is as rare as hen's teeth, not to mention that his 40% caught stealing rate is pretty solid and he has played every inning of every game at a demanding position.

My MVP for the Central League is Makoto Imaoka due to his winning the batting title and hitting .430 with RISP. Plus he will probably pick up another Gold Glove.

- Therefore, pitchers' real performance probably comes from WHIP, or simply Innings Pitched, Ks, BBs, and HRs given up.

If you agree with this statement, which I do (for the most part), then the best pitcher in Japan this year was Uehara Koji of the Giants. 11 complete games, 207 IP, 194 K, 23 BB(!), 190 hits allowed. Pretty impressive. However he, finished second in wins (16) and fouth in ERA (3.17).

I don't have any data to back this up, but I think that if Uehara had a better outfield defense, he would have had a lower ERA and won a couple more games. He allowed fewer baserunners than Igawa, Saitoh, or Matsuzaka, but still gave up more runs (though he did give up more homers, 28, than the others).

Anyway, Uehara will get no consideration for MVP, and would be fourth choice at best for the Sawamura Award, but in some ways, he was the best pitcher this year.

-- Therefore, pitchers' real performance probably comes from WHIP, or simply Innings Pitched, Ks, BBs, and HRs given up.

- If you agree with this statement, which I do (for the most part), then the best pitcher in Japan this year was Uehara Koji of the Giants.

I think it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're trying to determine which pitcher had the best season in 2003, the bottom line is how many runs that pitcher allowed. On the other hand, if you're deciding whom you'd want on your staff next year, looking at IP, K, BB and HR allowed is more useful. (BTW, WHIP includes hits allowed in its equation so that isn't the best stat to use when following a DIPS philosophy.)

I think Alex Carbera of the Seibu Lions has also a good chance of becoming the MVP of the Pacific League. He has had the best season so far with those home runs and RBIs he scored for his team. Again his average was also outstanding. I think he also has a good chance of being the MVP this season. Don't you think so?

While I don't think that Cabrera's contributions were quite enough, there is something that this reminds me of - namely that the MVP more often than not has a title or two under his belt. Cabrera was one short for the Home Run Crown, ranked 10th in batting average, and had less RBIs (112) than either Matsunaka (123) or Johjima (119).

You can see the 2003 Pacific League tile holders on this thread.

Johjima, while outstanding and a team leader in many ways, doesn't show up on the list of title holders for this year. Team mate Matsunaka does (RBI Crown). But fellow Hawk Satoh takes three pitching titles home. That will count very much in Satoh's favor.

While it isn't a real requirement, the MVP award is more often than not given to a player from the first place team. There are plenty of exceptions, but the general thought of most voters is that the most valuable player is a player who was valuable enough to get his team to the Nippon Series. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, just a general rule of thumb that appears to be used.

That should be Saitoh above, not Satoh. My miss.