The end of the season means it's time for the playoffs, of course. But it also means that it's time to vote on awards that reward regular-season work. The players also vote on awards -- and since they're voting on their peers, they have a unique perspective on the exercise.
The players vote on something called the Players Choice Awards. And since I'm tasked with voting for the Player of the Year at FanGraphs, I thought it would make sense to ask the players for advice.
I asked two questions of a wide variety of players. The first was about their general process in deciding on their vote. I wanted to know what stats they looked at and how they made their decision. The second was whether they thought a starting pitcher could rival a position player as the best player in baseball.
Let's take the questions, one at a time, and see what the players said.
What sort of process did you go through when you voted on the Player's Choice award?
Hunter Pence, Giants OF: "I really wish I didn't have to vote. I don't have all of the information. You play them at different times during the year. It would be a lot nicer if they had all of the stats in front of us when they gave us those sheets. I would like to have a lot of that when I make my decision, but I feel confident in my choice."
Jacoby Ellsbury, Yankees OF: "As players, we see guys on a regular basis, especially in your division. Numbers obviously count, and you definitely look at them, but I still think the good old eye test is the best way to evaluate."
Sean Doolittle, Athletics RP: "My vote was based on the way that maybe certain guys have impacted the game. Maybe we've played against them and the times that we've seen him, that's maybe what I thought about the most when I was voting on it. Not as much stats.
"I voted for Trout, and I think that the way that he impacts the game ... with him in the lineup, there's always a butterfly effect based on the way you're going to pitch to him and the way the rest of the lineup is going to get pitched. Defensive metrics don't really like him in center field. He's made some awesome plays, though. I think he can impact the game in so many ways, and he has a knack for being clutch, coming through with big hits late in the game for them."
Sam Fuld, Athletics OF: "The first thing I look at is WAR. To me, that's the best all-encompassing stat that's available. That's the first thing I look at, and if there's a toss-up between a couple of guys I might look at other criteria. But for me, it was Mike Trout and it was pretty much a no-brainer. Ultimately, with WAR, you have a way to look at how many wins a player can contribute to a team."
Jake Peavy, Giants SP: "Truly thinking about watching guys around the league. But yeah, you want to know a few stats before you just throw the vote at someone who had a good series against you. You look at the stats. Just the major stats. When you're talking about pitchers, you're talking about innings pitched, the type of big games they pitched in. And when you're getting down to really breaking down, wins and losses not so much. You really want to look at what matters."
Shane Victorino, Red Sox OF: "Numbers are one thing you look at, but for me it's not necessarily the guy with the best numbers who helped his team most and is most deserving of an award. There are other characteristics. You kind of focus on the numbers aspect, and if they are in close proximity, from there you kind of justify in other ways."
Chris Young, Yankees OF: "I go by numbers, pretty much. I pull up the numbers of the guys who are at the top of the league and see what they contributed for their team, how impactful they are. I don't know if any one category outweighs another category, per se. I don't really [look at advanced stats]. It's mostly the basic stuff for me."
If it was just one player of the year -- no Cy Young and MVP, just one player of the year -- could a pitcher rival a position player for that honor?
Chris Young, Yankees OF: "Yeah. No doubt. I wouldn't have any problem with that."
Jon Lester, Athletics SP: "Even though I'm a pitcher, I'm a believer in the fact that you have an MVP and a Cy Young, and that's the pitcher's MVP. For a pitcher to win both, it has to be a truly, truly special season. You're taking the value away from a guy that [plays] 155 games as opposed to 33.
"If you're giving one award out, you just have to look at the value of that one player to that team. If you take that one player off that team, how does the team move forward? Can it perform without them? If you remove a Kershaw and insert X for the Dodgers, how do they do? If you move a Trout, it's a bit more value, I feel, day to day. Through 162 games, it's harder for me to put more value on 33 games than 155."
Shane Victorino, Red Sox OF: "Not taking anything away from pitchers, but what justification does a pitcher have compared to a guy playing 162 games? But a pitcher can still be just as valuable. Look at Kershaw -- he makes them better every time he takes the mound. It happened here with Jacoby [Ellsbury] and [Justin] Verlander. Jacoby did it for 162, or however many games. You have to throw everything into a basket and see which carries more clout. I will never say never that a pitcher doesn't deserve it. If his work validates him being the player of the year, I'm not against it."
Jake Peavy, Giants SP: "If you take one player away from one team, and you look at one guy does, it's hard for me not to include a guy like Clayton Kershaw influences the game. I don't care how much he's able to play and if somebody plays way more games, the games that this guy plays, he's as influential as any player in the game. You can't tell if Justin Verlander was worthy of the MVP in 2012, that this guy is not worthy of an MVP this year. With this guy, we're possibly going to be talking about him as one of the best ever."
Sean Doolittle, Athletics RP: "I saw numbers the other day -- when Kershaw starts, the Dodgers are 24-4 and when everyone else starts, they're like a game over .500. When you have a guy that's made 28 starts and you get 24 wins. ... Granted, it's one season, so sample size isn't huge. But it's so drastic.
"People always say that position players play every day. But a starting pitcher, over the course of a season is going to face more batters and have more "at-bats" than a position player. And if you have a guy that can come out every five days and do that? You're almost guaranteed a win -- there's no guarantees in this game -- but the way he's been pitching this year, if you have him on the mound, that's as close as you can get. I don't know how that translates to WAR or what that would do for him, but it just seems to be such a drastic thing. It's a really good argument you can make for him."
Andrew Cashner, Padres SP: "To me, the season that Clayton Kershaw is putting in, it's pretty incredible to be that dominant that long into the season, and I think it is just as a valuable as a position player. It think it's two different categories, though. You're talking about a guy who plays every day versus a pitcher who pitches every five days. The position player has more of a workload; I wouldn't want to be a position player because of the grind every day. You have to be ready to go every day. I've never lived on that side so I don't know, but it looks hard."
Will Venable, Padres OF: "As much as I respect and think Clayton Kershaw is dominant and amazing and the best, just thinking about the fact that he plays 33 games a year -- and he missed five weeks -- and Trout plays every single days, it makes it easy for me, when we're talking about the most valuable player, to take Trout. Even if they face the same amount of plate appearances, there's also defense and baserunning. Even though Kershaw hits, and is a good player..."
Hunter Pence, Giants OF: "I think you should pick whoever you believe. Go with whoever you believe deserves it. It's all an opinion. It's just an opinion, so it can never be true. Whatever you feel is right for you is the perfect choice."
That last point may not sit right with an analytical type that looks to put the right number on a player's value, but maybe it's the best one to remember when it comes into awards season. In the end, by picking and choosing what numbers we look at, and how we choose to approach the question, we are making subjective decisions.
As a remarkably laid back Dude once said, "Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion man."
(Quotes from Jacoby Ellsbury, Shane Victorino & Chris Young were provided by David Laurila of FanGraphs.)
