Plunk Everyone

Earlier this week, the BBWAA gave out the 2008 MVP awards to Albert Pujols in the National League, and Dustin Pedroia in the American League. Those were some nice choices, but every year we argue about who had the best season and never take a broader look at things. What would happen if they awarded these things based on the last 5 seasons, instead of just the last 1 season? At the least, it might be interesting. 5 years is the approximate length of most players peak production, and it's a pretty popular contract length. Granted, the length of time is arbitrary, and the focus solely on each league will ignore some people who switched leagues but had a great 5 year span, and we're going to ignore pitchers arbitrarily too, but hey, we all know the real MVP voters make up rules as they go along anyway.

So lets take a look at the league leaders in some popular statistical categories, using the combined totals for the past 5 seasons:

HBP leaders - 2004 to 2008

American League	National League
Jason Giambi - 73	Chase Utley - 77
Alex Rodriguez - 69	Rickie Weeks - 58
Derek Jeter - 60	Geoff Jenkins - 52
Reed Johnson - 60	Aaron Rowand - 51
David DeJesus - 58	Jason LaRue - 50
Grady Sizemore - 53	Craig Wilson - 48
Melvin Mora - 49	Carlos Delgado - 46
Kevin Millar - 47	Matt Holliday - 46
Travis Hafner - 45	Craig Biggio - 44
Jose Guillen - 43	Brady Clark - 43
	Josh Willingham - 43

Hits leaders 2004 to 2008

American League	National League
Ichiro Suzuki - 1143	Jimmy Rollins - 943
Michael Young - 1038	Albert Pujols - 940
Derek Jeter - 989	Juan Pierre - 908
Vladimir Guerrero - 921	Matt Holliday - 848
Brian Roberts - 873	Jose Reyes - 835
Alex Rodriguez - 869	David Wright - 818
Carl Crawford - 867	Lance Berkman - 807
Johnny Damon - 867	Aramis Ramirez - 804
Raul Ibanez - 852	Brian Giles - 798
David Ortiz - 806	Chase Utley - 785

Home Run leaders 2004 to 2008

American League	National League
Alex Rodriguez - 208	Adam Dunn - 206
David Ortiz - 200	Albert Pujols - 205
Paul Konerko - 169	Ryan Howard - 177
Manny Ramirez - 163	Lance Berkman - 162
Jermaine Dye - 160	Aramis Ramirez - 158
Vladimir Guerrero - 158	Andruw Jones - 150
Mark Teixeira - 140	Pat Burrell - 148
Travis Hafner - 132	Carlos Beltran - 140
Justin Morneau - 129	Jason Bay - 136
Jason Giambi - 127	Carlos Delgado - 133

RBI leader 2004 to 2008

American League	National League
David Ortiz - 626	Albert Pujols - 589
Alex Rodriguez - 612	Lance Berkman - 530
Vladimir Guerrero - 562	Aramis Ramirez - 516
Manny Ramirez - 530	Adam Dunn - 500
Justin Morneau - 504	Ryan Howard - 488
Raul Ibanez - 483	Matt Holliday - 478
Paul Konerko - 479	Pat Burrell - 478
Michael Young - 464	David Wright - 477
Jermaine Dye - 460	Chase Utley - 463
Travis Hafner - 456	Carlos Beltran - 461
	Miguel Cabrera - 461

Batting Average leaders 2004 to 2008
(2500 AB minimum)

American League	National League
Ichiro Suzuki - .332	Albert Pujols - .335
Vladimir Guerrero - .323	Matt Holliday - .319
Derek Jeter - .315	David Wright - .309
Michael Young - .311	Lance Berkman - .305
Johnny Damon - .305	Derrek Lee - .304
Alex Rodriguez - .303	Aramis Ramirez - .304
Carl Crawford - .299	Chase Utley - .301
David Ortiz - .298	Juan Pierre - .296
Brian Roberts - .295	Jimmy Rollins - .290
Melvin Mora - .292	Rafael Furcal - .288

On Base Pct leaders (OBP) 2004 to 2008
(2500 Plate Appearance minimum)

American League	National League
David Ortiz - .403	Albert Pujols - .433
Alex Rodriguez - .401	Todd Helton - .433
Travis Hafner - .400	Lance Berkman - .418
Manny Ramirez - .400	Chipper Jones - .416
Vladimir Guerrero - .387	Miguel Cabrera - .396
Mark Teixeira - .382	David Wright - .389
Gary Sheffield - .382	Brian Giles - .386
Derek Jeter - .382	Matt Holliday - .386
Magglio Ordonez - .380	Derrek Lee - .383
Ichiro Suzuki - .379	Pat Burrell - .382

Slugging Pct leaders (SLG) 2004 to 2008
(2500 AB minimum)

American League	National League
David Ortiz - .599	Albert Pujols - .632
Manny Ramirez - .573	Chipper Jones - .564
Alex Rodriguez - .573	Lance Berkman - .559
Vladimir Guerrero - .557	Aramis Ramirez - .555
Mark Teixeira - .553	Matt Holliday - .552
Travis Hafner - .545	Miguel Cabrera - .551
Jermaine Dye - .526	Adam Dunn - .534
Paul Konerko - .513	Chase Utley - .534
Magglio Ordonez - .508	David Wright - .534
Justin Morneau - .503	Derrek Lee - .531

OPS (OBP + SLG) leaders 2004 to 2008

American League	National League
David Ortiz - 1.002	Albert Pujols - 1.065
Alex Rodriguez - 0.974	Chipper Jones - 0.980
Manny Ramirez - 0.973	Lance Berkman - 0.977
Vladimir Guerrero - 0.945	Miguel Cabrera - 0.947
Travis Hafner - 0.945	Todd Helton - 0.946
Mark Teixeira - 0.936	Matt Holliday - 0.938
Magglio Ordonez - 0.888	David Wright - 0.922
Gary Sheffield - 0.880	Aramis Ramirez - 0.921
Paul Konerko - 0.876	Adam Dunn - 0.915
Hideki Matsui - 0.873	Derrek Lee - 0.914

Taking a look at those numbers, there's a pretty clear choice in the National League - it really jumps off the screen at you, doesn't it? Obviously it has to be - Chase Utley. Sure, Albert Pujols led the 5 year span (pentaseason?) in batting average, OBP, Slugging Pct, OPS, and RBI, and missed the 5 year triple crown by 1 home run, and came in 2nd in total hits for the 5 year span as well, just 3 behind Jimmy Rollins. But Pujols only got hit by 32 pitches. Utley got hit 77 times in 5 years, and that's pretty good, even if it doesn't rank any where near the top 5 year spans in HBP history (Hughie Jennings had 202 in his best 5 years, Ron Hunt had 152, Baylor 123 and Biggio 117). But it was the best in the National League from 2004 to 2008. Aaron Rowand got hit 82 times in that span, but he had 31 of them in the American League. But okay, I can see the argument in favor of Albert Pujols as well. And behind Utley and Pujols, Lance Berkman has had a pretty impressive 5 year run.


In the American League, there are a lot more choices. Jason Giambi led the pentaseason by getting hit by 73 pitches in the AL, but it's not clear if he was still using BALCO brand performance enhancing drugs at that time, which obviously would have inflated his HBP numbers. Also, he hasn't brought much else to the table besides HBPs, unlike Chase Utley in the NL who still made the top 10 in several categories. Then you've got your choice between David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez. I'd pick Ortiz, since he's the only player other than Pujols to but up an OPS above 1.0 for the 5 year span. The 2 World Series rings make his regular seasons seem a little more impressive too. Rodriguez got hit by more pitches, but he also plays for the Yankees and has an annoying nickname, instead of a cool one like Big Papi. Rodriguez had more homers, but Ortiz had more RBI. Rodriguez had more hits and a better average, but not by much, and Ortiz beat him in OBP and Slugging.

The other arguable choice is Ichiro. When people were listing Pedroia's MVP resume this year, many mentioned the he tied Ichiro in hits for 2008. Well nobody tied Ichiro in hits for the span of 2004 to 2008 - nobody in history. The previous record for most hits in a 5 season stretch was 1,142, buy Ichiro from 2003 to 2007. He had one more in 2008 than in 2003, but we seem to forget what he's doing in any season in which he falls short of the single season hits record. Well, he just broke the 5 season hit record this year. Only two other players have ever managed a 5 year stretch with over 1100 hits - Chuck Klein with 1,118 from 1929 to 1933, and Bill Terry with 1103 from 1928 to 1932. Ichiro now has FOUR such pentaseasons, which means the least productive 5 years span of his career was 2002 to 2006 when he only had 1,112 hits. He had 1,130 from 2001 to 2005. That's really just another way to say he's had the best 8 year stretch of hitting ever (by 86 hits). Ichiro is so far ahead of all of his contemporaries in the hits category that if he'd sat out 2004, and had 0 hits instead of setting the single season record with 262, he'd still have 12 more hits than any other player between 2001 and 2008. As it stands, he's 274 hits ahead of Albert Pujols for the most since the beginning of 2001.

So anyway, since Pedroia is the 2008 MVP than the AL must be the small-ball league, it seems like Ichiro would be a good choice for the 2004 to 2008 5 year AL MVP.