Monday, October 03, 2011

Who was the Twins MVP?


Earlier this season, I introduced you to a metric that I called "Perceived Value". It's a strictly offensive metric that seeks to quantify what a player is thought of at the plate. Eventually, it comes back towards true talent, but some players are still over or under valued. It also demonstrates how positively or negatively a player has made their first impression, which can make or break a career. Just look at Lew Ford.
I also threw in a metric to determine how much a player was over or underrrated. It goes almost directly back to the invented "clutch" stat. Since said stat has a lot to do with what a team around an individual player does, I used the team average clutch and multiplied that by the OPS, which would be closer to an "actual" value by this, again, entirely made up metric. So, I will share with you the players that were perhaps a little bit overrated or underrated, as well as the players with the highest perceived values.
So which player had the greatest Perceived Value? Who had the worst? The top three in perceived value were Chris Parmelee, Jim Thome and Jason Kubel, who were also the three most overrated. Why? Parmelee is an obvious lesson in small sample size. His hot month has everyone thinking he will be the star of the future, and while he did put up some strong stats, he wasn't in the league long enough to regress to the mean. Thome and Kubel often hit 5th or 6th in the lineup, showing just how much batting order position helps perception. Both had a ton of RBI, but also had more opportunity. If it would get to them later in an inning, there was more likely to be a runner in scoring position.
The lowest Perceived Value players were Rene Rivera, Joe Benson and Drew Butera. Unlike the top of the list, Rivera and Butera were perceived to be just as bad as they actually are. Joe Benson, on the other hand, was one of the more underrated players on the roster. The next two most underrated were Brian Dinkelman and Denard Span. The lesson here is the same as with overrated players. Benson and Dinkelman would have eventually come back to the mean, one would expect. They swung the bat well enough, but not at the key moments. Span is a victim of being the lead off hitter. It would be a minor miracle if someone was on base when he came up, and when it happened, the runner would likely be on first with 2 outs. Batting at the top of the order is not good for one's RBI stats, is what I am saying.
The full sheet can be found here,

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