Blue Jays fans have had been fortunate to follow 3 players having great years in 2003. There's a chance that all three will finish in the top 10 in AL MVP voting, though none of them is likely to win. One of those three, Roy Halladay, has nosed ahead of Esteban Loaiza for the Cy Young because of his chief rival's poor outing in a crucial game against Minnesota last night. My gut feeling is that if the ChiSox don't make the playoffs, and that's looking likely, Loaiza won't win the Cy.
Carlos Delgado has had the 2nd best year of his career, but the lack of good stuff to hit has cut into his power hitting lately. Vernon Wells continues to pound out the hits and is on track to break the club record this season. Vernon has also earned praise in centrefield, while Carlos has drawn respect for his much improved glovework at the first sack.
So who deserves the Jays' MVP this year? I'll leave discussion of Roy Halladay's credentials for another day.
Based on the method presented in the Pujols versus Bonds entry, I estimate that the Wells/Delgado duo is responsible for about 30% of the Jays run production this year. Vernon Wells has produced about 115.8 runs in 684 PAs (.169 r/pa), while Carlos Delgado has produced about 138.9 runs in 657 PAs (.211 r/pa).
Estimating how valuable that production is requires the establishment of a baseline of comparison. Conceptually, the best idea is to set the baseline at the level a replacement player at that position would produce. That presents practical difficulties since we don't really know where that line should be drawn, but we do know that a centerfielder replacement is likely to hit much worse than a replacement first baseman.
I set the replacement level for 1B at .115 r/pa, which coincidentally is equal to the production rate of Orlando Hudson in 2003. I think this is reasonable because a 1B that hit like Hudson has this year would be an exteremly marginal offensive performer. For CF, I set the bar at .090 r/pa which is a little bit lower than the rate of production Jayson Werth has contributed this year.
Setting the replacement level in this way, I estimate that Carlos has produced 63.4 runs above replacement, while Vernon has produced 54.2 in excess of replacement level.
The above analysis doesn't take clutch hitting into account, so lets look at how the two men have done is various MoB situations.
RISP
Vernon 175 AB, 54 H, 89 TB, 16 W, 24 K, .363 OBP, .509 SLG
Carlos 142 AB, 50 H, 90 TB, 48 W, 25 K, .515 OBP, .634 SLG
Man on First only
Vernon 135 AB, 40 H, 73 TB, 5 W, 15 K, .331 OBP, .541 SLG
Carlos 115 AB, 29 H, 60 TB, 19 W, 29 K, .368 OBP, .522 SLG
Bases Empty
Vernon 322 AB, 106 H, 184 TB, 17 W, 37 K, .367 OBP, .571 SLG
Carlos 271 AB, 79 H, 152 TB, 38 W, 74 K, .398 OBP, .561 SLG
Carlos' overall edge in hitting shows up almost entirely in the RISP category. Despite being pitched around, he's still slugged well over .600. Vernon has hit almost equally well in all situations, which may suggest that he hasn't been pitched differently based on MoB situation (and that would stand to reason because Delgado has batted behind him all year). Consideration of production with men on base seems to widen the offensive gap between the two.
Wells probably has a greater defensive value compared to a scrub-centerfielder than Delgado has compared to a replacement 1B. However, it's worth noting that fielding stats do not yet indicate that Vernon Wells is a Gold-Glove calibre centerfielder. Thus, we should resist the temptation to exagerrate Wells' defensive value.
I think that Vernon Wells is the best baserunner on the team; he's very good at taking extra bases (e.g. he tagged up from first on a flyball and advanced to 2nd in yesterday's game) and I've rarely seen him thrown out. Carlos Delgado is a much more cautious baserunner, of course.
What does it all add up to? I really don't know. Perhaps some weight should be given to Delgado's status as the "spiritual" leader of the club. You can make a good case for either player as the team MVP.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030917113856999