Sometimes it's better not to know. Until I read this piece, I had absolutely no idea that any serious and thinking person on the planet was talking about Lindor as a potential MVP candidate. Sure, he's had a nice season...a solid uptick in performance. Sure, he plays in New York and has a 1,000-watt smile. But an MVP? Comparable to Shohei Ohtani?
No way.
The problem here isn't Lindor specifically, but why anyone not a provocateur would argue he's even an MVP possibility. A cursory review of the Leader Board at Baseball Reference reveals that Lindor is not leading in a single NL offensive category outside of stats like games played, ABs and plate appearances. In terms of old school counting stats, his greater chances at the plate should give him an edge in leading some counting stat categories if he were truly the MVP.
Yet, somehow, he isn't. Here is where he is at according to my admittedly quick review:
*Hits - 4th.
*Runs scored - 3rd.
*RBI's - 10th.
*HR's - Tied for 5th.
*BBs - Not in the top 10
*SBs - 10th.
*OBP% - Not in the top 10.
*Slugging% - 7th
*OBP + Slugging - 10th
*Total Bases - 3rd
...and so on. In virtually all these same categories, Ohtani is leading...by a solid margin. Yet - inexplicably and disconcertingly - Lindor's MVP case gets worse from here.
When we take the large number of sabermetric measurements that we have come to trust in assessing true or hidden performance for decades - things like Runs Created, OPS, Adjusted OPS+, Adj. Batting Runs, Adj. Batting Wins, Offensive Winning %, RE24, WPA, cWPA etc. - Francisco Lindor's season is somehow even less impressive.
With all these advanced metrics not only is he not leading, but he's routinely absent from even the top 5 in the NL, forget about across the MLB. Meanwhile, Ohtani is yet again, leading these in these measurements by a wide margin.
So, how can we credibly make an argument for Lindor? Has there ever been a player in the MVP conservation in the history of the game with such non-elite numbers in virtually all categories (counting stats and sabermetric measurements) ...while another player is thoroughly dominating them? I can't think of one.
Well, you might reflexively say "defense." He is a shortstop while Ohtani is only a DH this year. Yet, while defensive metrics can be contradictory and vexing, I don't see great defensive performance from him on this dimension either. His Defensive WAR on Baseball Reference is not in the Top 13 in even the NL, and his Defensive Runs Saved (+2) and Fielding Runs Above Average are, well, average. Even his old school Range Factor is below League average. Yet, that doesn't stop people at ESPN and elsewhere from trying to will into existence a false reality by simply repeating over and over "he's had a terrific year defensively."
I get that Ohtani is not given any boost for defense, but neither should Lindor as a pedestrian shortstop.
What this all comes down to it appears is a single metric - WAR - and not even all versions of that measurement either. Baseball Reference's version of WAR has him at #3 with Ohtani again comfortably at #1.
When a boatload of metrics all uniformly scream "nice season but no MVP" except some lonesome and isolated versions of WAR, something is alarmingly wrong with WAR. I never thought I would say this, but I'm starting to see Bill James' point about the inadequacies of WAR. I frequently comment on the need for analysts to explain the "why" behind their numbers - why they make sense - and not simply reveal a number from an algorithm and presume is somehow without debate or justification reflects truth.
Francisco Lindor as an MVP simply makes no sense in the real world of experience or judgment. Imagine you were a passenger on a plane where the pilot looks at their gauges and sees that 15 are in the red, but one dial marked "WAR" says everything couldn't be better. Would you want your pilot to trust only that single dial and ignore the others? Of course you wouldn't. You would immediately be in a full-blown panic that the WAR dial is malfunctioning or inaccurate. That's real-world reactions and analysis.
Yet incredibly, that's exactly what we are doing here - ignoring all the gauges. To be clear, this isn't about the media's annoying "Get Out of Jail Free Card" that I constantly hear, "...well I'm not saying Ohtani isn't going to win...." It's about the larger question of why anyone moderately observant of the game and outside of Queens is even talking about Francisco Lindor as an MVP.
If the entire case is only supported by some puzzling number from a WAR calculator that pays no heed to all the contradictory evidence, I must ask what is WAR good for? Unfortunately, I suspect absolutely nothing...say it again.
Grant, we can itemize exactly where the runs (relative to average, per 162 team games) are coming from that determine the two players' WAR:
Player Bat BsR Fld Pos Rep WAR
Shohei Ohtani +61 +9 0 -15 +24 7.91
Francisco Lindor +31 +5 +7 +9 +24 7.66
As you can see, the big difference is due to defense -- and especially, the position adjustment. Because Ohtani doesn't play defense, Lindor gains 7 net runs on Shohei just by being an above-average SS, and then 24 more runs through the position adjustment, as SS versus DH is just about the biggest imbalance in inherent defensive value between positions there can be. So the 34-run lead created by Ohtani's bat and baserunning is almost entirely canceled out by the defensive aspect.
The defensive adjustment and the way DH's are treated is certainly a highly controversial aspect of WAR -- perhaps THE most controversial. But I have the data itemized on GitHub; it's not some huge mystery where the value differences are coming from:
I will also say that WAR is a framework that attempts to create rules that judge every player by a consistent standard. In the absence of that, you start making ad hoc decisions that introduce bias. I'd rather stick to a flawed, but generally quite good -- and consistent -- framework than not.
Neil, first a huge thank you to you for this comprehensive, thoughtful, and amazingly fast response - I know one thing for certain, this is what an MVP looks like on Substack!
A couple of points of clarification for the discussion. First, I am comforted that the defensive component is "highly controversial" to WAR. To be candid, the sabermetric community needs to look at that element much harder and thoroughly convince itself that these numbers truly do make sense in the big picture given other metrics. Candidly, they don't for me at this point with regard to Lindor.
Back of the envelope - when I read (I think it was) Palmer and Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball 40 years ago, I recall a very logical conclusion that fielding was 6% of the game, with offense comprising 50% and pitching 44%. That makes total sense to me. If you consider that playing SS is only a fraction of that 6% it's hard for me to accept that playing SS can overcome a huge edge from a player on offense.
Beyond that, the performance delta in player fielding has in my estimation become even smaller than it was in 1984...and much smaller than it is for player offense. Thus, while it sounds like we might disagree on Lindor's defensive acumen, I'm not sure that that where he is at vis-a-vis an average SS should account for very much upside anyway.
If it did, why aren't we talking about Bobby Witt Jr. for AL MVP in the same vein as Lindor?
It seems obvious to me - you might disagree - that Witt Jr. is a far better defensive shortstop than Lindor. The surprising Royals are likely in the postseason largely because of him. Yet not a single article touts Witt Jr's superior numbers - offensive and defensive - compared to Lindor when speaking about New York's own Aaron Judge. This, despite a BR WAR differential of only 0.6 in favor of Judge versus Witt Jr.
Judge, like Ohtani, has been the DH in 37 games and accumulated a -6 DRS in CF for most of his other games. If defense silently matters so much in the NL for Lindor, why not in the AL as well when the MVP leader just happens to be another New York player that the media has already thrown the award to without question? Shouldn't Witt Jr at a minimum also be "in the conversation" just like Lindor? Why isn't he?
To be clear, the two MVPs this year in my view are Judge and Ohtani, but you can't convince me that zip code doesn't play a part in all the sudden over the top Lindor chatter while Witt Jr.'s better season is met with total silence in the press.
Finally, I do completely agree that we should not introduce inconsistency into the evaluations. In fact, the metrics I presented in favor of Ohtani are nothing if not consistent. I will, however, call out the irony that what is decidedly NOT consistent are the various WAR calculations and the disparate media treatment of Bobby Witt Jr. compared to Francisco Lindor in these MVP debates.
Thanks so much again for the heavy lift here and enjoy your evening.
Thank you (as always!) for the civil conversation, Grant. I believe that conclusion from the Hidden Game -- which I adored growing up -- was before DIPS theory turned our understanding of pitching upside down with the revelation that pitchers have little control over BABIP once a ball is in play. (In other words, defense was being massively undervalued by analysts in the early era.)
Witt Jr. is definitely an awesome defender, but Statcast (which tracks every player's positioning before and throughout the play -- it's the most advanced measure of fielding value ever created) thinks he and Lindor been pretty close in defensive performance this season:
It's actually kind of funny that each league has a burly slugger (Judge and Ohtani) facing an ace defensive SS (Witt and Lindor) in a close WAR race. The AL race is just happening at a much higher level of value, as there are also 3 other AL players who are better than anybody in the NL:
Good to know that I am still old...and that the world has continue to move forward without me...LOL! Thanks so much again for the great back and forth...
Sometimes it's better not to know. Until I read this piece, I had absolutely no idea that any serious and thinking person on the planet was talking about Lindor as a potential MVP candidate. Sure, he's had a nice season...a solid uptick in performance. Sure, he plays in New York and has a 1,000-watt smile. But an MVP? Comparable to Shohei Ohtani?
No way.
The problem here isn't Lindor specifically, but why anyone not a provocateur would argue he's even an MVP possibility. A cursory review of the Leader Board at Baseball Reference reveals that Lindor is not leading in a single NL offensive category outside of stats like games played, ABs and plate appearances. In terms of old school counting stats, his greater chances at the plate should give him an edge in leading some counting stat categories if he were truly the MVP.
Yet, somehow, he isn't. Here is where he is at according to my admittedly quick review:
*Hits - 4th.
*Runs scored - 3rd.
*RBI's - 10th.
*HR's - Tied for 5th.
*BBs - Not in the top 10
*SBs - 10th.
*OBP% - Not in the top 10.
*Slugging% - 7th
*OBP + Slugging - 10th
*Total Bases - 3rd
...and so on. In virtually all these same categories, Ohtani is leading...by a solid margin. Yet - inexplicably and disconcertingly - Lindor's MVP case gets worse from here.
When we take the large number of sabermetric measurements that we have come to trust in assessing true or hidden performance for decades - things like Runs Created, OPS, Adjusted OPS+, Adj. Batting Runs, Adj. Batting Wins, Offensive Winning %, RE24, WPA, cWPA etc. - Francisco Lindor's season is somehow even less impressive.
With all these advanced metrics not only is he not leading, but he's routinely absent from even the top 5 in the NL, forget about across the MLB. Meanwhile, Ohtani is yet again, leading these in these measurements by a wide margin.
So, how can we credibly make an argument for Lindor? Has there ever been a player in the MVP conservation in the history of the game with such non-elite numbers in virtually all categories (counting stats and sabermetric measurements) ...while another player is thoroughly dominating them? I can't think of one.
Well, you might reflexively say "defense." He is a shortstop while Ohtani is only a DH this year. Yet, while defensive metrics can be contradictory and vexing, I don't see great defensive performance from him on this dimension either. His Defensive WAR on Baseball Reference is not in the Top 13 in even the NL, and his Defensive Runs Saved (+2) and Fielding Runs Above Average are, well, average. Even his old school Range Factor is below League average. Yet, that doesn't stop people at ESPN and elsewhere from trying to will into existence a false reality by simply repeating over and over "he's had a terrific year defensively."
I get that Ohtani is not given any boost for defense, but neither should Lindor as a pedestrian shortstop.
What this all comes down to it appears is a single metric - WAR - and not even all versions of that measurement either. Baseball Reference's version of WAR has him at #3 with Ohtani again comfortably at #1.
When a boatload of metrics all uniformly scream "nice season but no MVP" except some lonesome and isolated versions of WAR, something is alarmingly wrong with WAR. I never thought I would say this, but I'm starting to see Bill James' point about the inadequacies of WAR. I frequently comment on the need for analysts to explain the "why" behind their numbers - why they make sense - and not simply reveal a number from an algorithm and presume is somehow without debate or justification reflects truth.
Francisco Lindor as an MVP simply makes no sense in the real world of experience or judgment. Imagine you were a passenger on a plane where the pilot looks at their gauges and sees that 15 are in the red, but one dial marked "WAR" says everything couldn't be better. Would you want your pilot to trust only that single dial and ignore the others? Of course you wouldn't. You would immediately be in a full-blown panic that the WAR dial is malfunctioning or inaccurate. That's real-world reactions and analysis.
Yet incredibly, that's exactly what we are doing here - ignoring all the gauges. To be clear, this isn't about the media's annoying "Get Out of Jail Free Card" that I constantly hear, "...well I'm not saying Ohtani isn't going to win...." It's about the larger question of why anyone moderately observant of the game and outside of Queens is even talking about Francisco Lindor as an MVP.
If the entire case is only supported by some puzzling number from a WAR calculator that pays no heed to all the contradictory evidence, I must ask what is WAR good for? Unfortunately, I suspect absolutely nothing...say it again.
Thanks as always for an interesting read.
Grant, we can itemize exactly where the runs (relative to average, per 162 team games) are coming from that determine the two players' WAR:
Player Bat BsR Fld Pos Rep WAR
Shohei Ohtani +61 +9 0 -15 +24 7.91
Francisco Lindor +31 +5 +7 +9 +24 7.66
As you can see, the big difference is due to defense -- and especially, the position adjustment. Because Ohtani doesn't play defense, Lindor gains 7 net runs on Shohei just by being an above-average SS, and then 24 more runs through the position adjustment, as SS versus DH is just about the biggest imbalance in inherent defensive value between positions there can be. So the 34-run lead created by Ohtani's bat and baserunning is almost entirely canceled out by the defensive aspect.
The defensive adjustment and the way DH's are treated is certainly a highly controversial aspect of WAR -- perhaps THE most controversial. But I have the data itemized on GitHub; it's not some huge mystery where the value differences are coming from:
https://github.com/Neil-Paine-1/MLB-WAR-data-historical/blob/master/jeffbagwell_war_historical_2024.csv
I will also say that WAR is a framework that attempts to create rules that judge every player by a consistent standard. In the absence of that, you start making ad hoc decisions that introduce bias. I'd rather stick to a flawed, but generally quite good -- and consistent -- framework than not.
Neil, first a huge thank you to you for this comprehensive, thoughtful, and amazingly fast response - I know one thing for certain, this is what an MVP looks like on Substack!
A couple of points of clarification for the discussion. First, I am comforted that the defensive component is "highly controversial" to WAR. To be candid, the sabermetric community needs to look at that element much harder and thoroughly convince itself that these numbers truly do make sense in the big picture given other metrics. Candidly, they don't for me at this point with regard to Lindor.
Back of the envelope - when I read (I think it was) Palmer and Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball 40 years ago, I recall a very logical conclusion that fielding was 6% of the game, with offense comprising 50% and pitching 44%. That makes total sense to me. If you consider that playing SS is only a fraction of that 6% it's hard for me to accept that playing SS can overcome a huge edge from a player on offense.
Beyond that, the performance delta in player fielding has in my estimation become even smaller than it was in 1984...and much smaller than it is for player offense. Thus, while it sounds like we might disagree on Lindor's defensive acumen, I'm not sure that that where he is at vis-a-vis an average SS should account for very much upside anyway.
If it did, why aren't we talking about Bobby Witt Jr. for AL MVP in the same vein as Lindor?
It seems obvious to me - you might disagree - that Witt Jr. is a far better defensive shortstop than Lindor. The surprising Royals are likely in the postseason largely because of him. Yet not a single article touts Witt Jr's superior numbers - offensive and defensive - compared to Lindor when speaking about New York's own Aaron Judge. This, despite a BR WAR differential of only 0.6 in favor of Judge versus Witt Jr.
Judge, like Ohtani, has been the DH in 37 games and accumulated a -6 DRS in CF for most of his other games. If defense silently matters so much in the NL for Lindor, why not in the AL as well when the MVP leader just happens to be another New York player that the media has already thrown the award to without question? Shouldn't Witt Jr at a minimum also be "in the conversation" just like Lindor? Why isn't he?
To be clear, the two MVPs this year in my view are Judge and Ohtani, but you can't convince me that zip code doesn't play a part in all the sudden over the top Lindor chatter while Witt Jr.'s better season is met with total silence in the press.
Finally, I do completely agree that we should not introduce inconsistency into the evaluations. In fact, the metrics I presented in favor of Ohtani are nothing if not consistent. I will, however, call out the irony that what is decidedly NOT consistent are the various WAR calculations and the disparate media treatment of Bobby Witt Jr. compared to Francisco Lindor in these MVP debates.
Thanks so much again for the heavy lift here and enjoy your evening.
Thank you (as always!) for the civil conversation, Grant. I believe that conclusion from the Hidden Game -- which I adored growing up -- was before DIPS theory turned our understanding of pitching upside down with the revelation that pitchers have little control over BABIP once a ball is in play. (In other words, defense was being massively undervalued by analysts in the early era.)
Witt Jr. is definitely an awesome defender, but Statcast (which tracks every player's positioning before and throughout the play -- it's the most advanced measure of fielding value ever created) thinks he and Lindor been pretty close in defensive performance this season:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/fielding-run-value?year=2024&team=&min=750&pos=6
For my part, I've been on the Judge-Witt WAR battle all season:
https://substack.com/@neilpaine/note/c-65015603
It's actually kind of funny that each league has a burly slugger (Judge and Ohtani) facing an ace defensive SS (Witt and Lindor) in a close WAR race. The AL race is just happening at a much higher level of value, as there are also 3 other AL players who are better than anybody in the NL:
https://neilpaine.substack.com/i/142766886/mlb-wins-above-replacement-leaderboard
Good to know that I am still old...and that the world has continue to move forward without me...LOL! Thanks so much again for the great back and forth...