Chipper Jones, MVP Shortstops, and OPS Denial

If Jimmy Rollins had the fifth best OPS on his own team, how can he be the Most Valuable Player of an entire league?

Pete Palmer and John Thorn are given credit for popularizing On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) as a viable statistic for placing value on a hitter. They mentioned the statistic in their 1984 book The Hidden Game of Baseball, and it slowly snowballed, becoming more accepted by the mainstream as it rolled all the way to the back of Topps baseball cards in 2004. There are skeptics who refute the stat as incomplete. They say OBP is much more important to scoring runs than SLG, and the league leader in slugging is inevitably .150 to .200 points higher than the on-base leader. Still, OPS is a flawed, but fairly accurate judge of the most valuable hitter in each league.

Last season in the National League, pundits and writers debated the three-man race for the Most Valuable Player Award. Jimmy Rollins came on and eventually took the award, but Matt Holliday and Prince Fielder still received substantial first place votes. Holliday ended up losing out to Rollins by only 17 points after Fielder slipped and Milwaukee failed to make the playoffs. Rollins’ OPS was considerably lower than Holliday or Fielder, and even as a lead-off hitter on the top scoring offense in the NL, his OBP was well below as well. Understanding defense and intangibles can be taken in account by voters, do they make up enough of the gap in the numbers?

Going strictly by OPS, the MVP should have gone to a hitter a little under last season’s radar. A hitter who didn’t receive any first place votes. A hitter who the voters deemed as the sixth best choice for the MVP—Chipper Jones. Chipper Jones? Yes, when the smoke cleared, Jones’ 1.029 OPS lead the NL, and Rollins’ .875, was well out of the top 10.

	Voting	OPS	OBA	SLG	Team Wins
Jimmy Rollins	353	.875	.344	.531	89
Matt Holiday	336	1.012	.405	.607	90
Prince Fielder	284	1.013	.395	.618	83
Chipper Jones	107	1.029	.425	.604	84

Rollins, a vocal leader on the best offensive team in the NL, was far from being the team’s OPS leader. Those that argue that he deserves the award because he led the league in at-bats, games, runs, and triples, and he’s the catalyst for the best lineup in the NL, need to note that he was .136 points behind Barry Bonds in OBP, fifth on his own team in OPS, and sixth in OBP. I’m not a mathematician, but I think that there are at least four other Phillies who, put at the top of that lineup, would have had scored more runs than Rollins.

Phillies	OPS	OBA	SLG
Jimmy Rollins	.875	.344	.531
Chase Utley	.976	.410	.566
Ryan Howard	.976	.392	.584
Pat Burrell	.902	.400	.502
Aaron Rowand	.889	.374	.515

“The best player on the best team“ or “the best hitter in the best lineup” has always received support from MVP voters. One can assume this is something the voters took into account with Rollins (although it seems pretty clear that he wasn’t the best hitter on the Phillies), but there are many other factors that can keep an OPS leader from becoming the MVP. Obviously, a great pitching performance can lead to an MVP (although Dennis Eckersley was the last pitcher in either league to win an MVP in 1992), but well-liked players, large personalities, big markets, gold glove defense, stolen bases, or a hot player who carries a team through a pennant race can all sway voters. Taking these factors into account, and looking back over the last 30 years, it is interesting to see when the OPS leader in a league was well out of the MVP voting; far enough back that none of these factors can be used as an alibi.

The MVP is an important designation on the history of baseball. That player becomes synonymous with that season, linked forever, as chapter and subchapter. It is a coronation; the player is knighted and forever known as “Former MVP.” When Miguel Tejada was traded to the Astros a few weeks ago, headlines read “MVP Shortstop Headed to Houston”, and sportscasters teased “See where this former MVP will now call home.”

Tejada, like Rollins a shortstop, won an MVP in 2002 with an OPS well below the leaders at .862. That same year Jim Thome was in his last season with Cleveland, and finished seventh in the MVP voting while leading the AL with a 1.122 OPS. (Thome’s former teammate, Albert Belle, was the only player to exceed 1.000 in 1998, but he finished eighth in the MVP voting).

The grossest discrepancies between OPS and MVP voting in the past 30 years are those players who finished tenth or below in voting. Some of these players played in shortened seasons whether it be through strike or injury:

Year		Voting	OPS	OBA	SLG	MVP	OPS	OBA	SLG
1999	Larry Walker	10th	1.168	.458	.710	Chipper Jones	1.074	.441	.633
1995	Barry Bonds	12th	1.008	.431	.577	Barry Larkin	.886	.394	.492
1984	Dwight Evans	11th	.920	.388	.532	Willie Hernandez
1983	George Brett	NA	.947	.385	.563	Cal Ripken Jr.	.888	.371	.517
1979	Dave Kingman	11th	.956	.343	.613	Keith Hernandez	.930	.417	.513
						Willie Stargell	.904	.352	.552

The strike delayed the start of the 1995 season, and shortened it to 144 games. The first place votes were scattered among five players, but Bonds received none of these. The seven-time MVP was on a last place team, and the MVP went to another shortstop in a high-powered lineup on a playoff team. Barry Larkin’s OPS was way off the leader board, though still .011 points higher than Rollins’ in ‘07. (Mike Piazza did get three first place votes with an OPS only .002 points lower than Bonds).

Brett also led the league in OPS in 1980 and won the MVP, and again in 1985, but finished second in voting to Don Mattingly. In 1983, one can assume legitimately that missing 22 games with a toe injury hurt his chances, but maybe less legitimately, that was the year of the “pine tar incident,” and it may have somewhat tarnished his image. But in 1983, the OPS leader got zero MVP points (Bob Stanley, Rudy Law and George Wright all got votes). Interestingly, it was a shortstop with an OPS in the .880s, on a first place team that finished second in the AL in runs who won the award.

Evans failed to receive an MVP trophy twice while leading the AL in OPS in ’81 and ‘84. Both of these awards went to relief pitchers, Rollie Fingers and Willie Hernandez, respectively, who combined for only 127 games during the two seasons, while Evans played 270 games during those years. Evans’ longtime teammate, Wade Boggs, also never won an MVP award, but did lead the AL in OPS in 1987 and 1988. In 1988, Jose Canseco was a unanimous MVP selection, and Boggs’ teammate, Mike Greenwell, finished second with 242 points. Greenwell has claimed that he should be awarded the MVP after Canseco’s admission of steroid use, but perhaps it should be given instead to Boggs.

Another third baseman who is no stranger to MVP awards is Mike Schmidt. Schmidt was awarded the MVP in 1980, 1981, and 1986, after leading the NL in OPS all three seasons, but he also led in two other years. In 1982, Dale Murphy won the MVP with a .885 OPS, while Schmidt finished sixth in voting with a .950 OPS. In 1984, Ryne Sandberg won with a .887 OPS, while Schmidt finished seventh with a .919 OPS. Both Sandberg and Murphy’s teams made the playoffs in their MVP seasons.

There are other times in the voting when performance measured by OPS has mattered so little to voters, and being on a good team has been so crucial that the OPS leader has been buried behind three players on the same team. In Larry Walker’s aforementioned case, he finished 10^th in the voting in 1999 behind three members of the Wild Card champion Mets: Mike Piazza, Robin Ventura, and Edgardo Alfonzo. In 2006, Travis Hafner’s 1.097 OPS led the AL, but he finished eighth in the MVP voting behind three Central Division champion Twins: Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and Johan Santana. Frank Thomas’ .975 OPS was high enough to lead the AL, but not high enough for him to receive more votes than Mike Devereaux, who finished seventh, or three members of the World Champion Blue Jays: Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar, and Dave Winfield.