# Posts Tagged most valuable player odds

### NL/AL MVP

Sportsbooks haven’t convened MVP odds yet because I haven’t posted them myself.  This is an obvious observation to anybody that visits this blog on a yearly basis.  I think we’d all agree on this.  (I use the terms “we’d all” and “nobody in particular” interchangeably).

The formula behind setting a probability on a given player’s chances can be expressed as:

$P(v_i) = \begin{Bmatrix} \displaystyle \frac{2v_i}{\sum _j^n v_j}, & \mbox {if } v_i>0 \\ 0, & \mbox {if } v_i \leq 0 \end{Bmatrix}$

If a player doesn’t register a positive number of MVP points, the variable v, then he is simply ignored.  The points are calculated slightly differently in the NL and AL, and the years 2000-2010 were used to fit the data.  This has already been explained on multiple occasions.

For AL batters and pitchers:

$V_{ALb} = 57.28(PLAYOFFS) + 12.58(WAR) + 11.08(WPA) + 1.81(HR) + 1212.25(AVG) + 0.58(RBI) - 500$ $V_{ALp} = 50(PLAYOFFS) + 25(WAR) + 15(WPA) - 25(ERA) - 100$

The “PLAYOFFS” variable is either 1 or 0, and in season playoff projections are essentially current standings.

For all NL batters and pitchers:

$V_{NLb} = 78.41(playoffs) + 8.98(WAR) + 10.97(WPA) + 975.41(AVG) + 3.79(HR) + 0.93(RP) + 1.07(SB) - 553$ $V_{NLp} = 30(playoffs) + 10(WPA) + 25(WAR) - 150$

The motivation for using WAR and WPA as primary coefficients stemmed from this post, which I found quite interesting.

At the bottom of the post I’ve attached some relevant excel files.  I’m not going to post anymore about this (I’ll do Cy Young this weekend and attach the necessary files), there really shouldn’t be any reason for me to have to.  I also never want to have to use or look at an excel file ever again.  But if I get enough requests via twitter/email/comments I’ll make a dedicated page that updates daily, probably using my own WAR calculations instead of bRef’s mess of drivel, and some server-side scripting.

Last year the formula picked Ryan Braun and Miguel Cabrera.  Verlander I think can we all agree should not have won the MVP.

NL MVP

 NAME Team bWAR WPA PROB ODDS Andrew McCutchen PIT 5.1 3.2 52.15% -108 Ryan Braun MIL 3.9 3 33.73% 196 Joey Votto CIN 4.5 5.2 33.42% 199 Melky Cabrera SFG 3.8 2.7 18.64% 436 Johnny Cueto CIN 4 2 15.18% 559 Carlos Gonzalez COL 1.6 1.8 8.73% 1045 Carlos Beltran STL 2.3 1.8 6.49% 1441 Matt Holliday STL 3.6 2.8 6.32% 1482 Buster Posey SFG 2.8 1.5 5.44% 1738 Ian Desmond WSN 2.3 3.5 5.41% 1748 Pedro Alvarez PIT 2 1.1 5.29% 1790 Jay Bruce CIN 1.1 0.2 4.13% 2321 Giancarlo Stanton MIA 3 2.5 2.34% 4174 Ryan Vogelsong SFG 2.8 2.1 2.18% 4487 Brandon Phillips CIN 2.2 0.8 0.55% 18082

AL MVP

 NAME TEAM bWAR WPA PROB ODDS Mike Trout TBR 5.3 0.5 34.66% 188 Robinson Cano NYY 5 1.6 31.16% 221 Josh Hamilton TEX 3.2 1.2 22.88% 337 Adrian Beltre TEX 3 1.6 22.13% 352 Mark Trumbo TBR 3.2 0 18.48% 441 Josh Reddick NYY 3.8 4.2 14.96% 568 Alex Rios TEX 2.6 1.7 14.61% 584 Miguel Cabrera DET 3.5 2.2 14.42% 593 David Ortiz BOS 2.7 2.5 6.46% 1448 Matt Harrison TEX 4.1 2.5 5.95% 1581 Fernando Rodney TBR 1.9 2.8 5.87% 1604 Justin Verlander DET 5 3.1 3.51% 2749 Chris Sale CHW 4.7 3 3.18% 3045 Edwin Encarnacion TOR 3 2.5 1.72% 5716

Here are the files. The “NLMVP_ODDS” and “ALMVP_ODDS” files require a data refresh and some sorting.  Feel free to change the coefficients, I don’t care.  Some files may be irrelevant, not sure.  I just threw a bunch of seemingly related files in an archive.

MLB_MVP_FILES.tar

### MVP and Cy Young Update

Sportsbook.com has gone mad, judging by their latest Cy Young and MVP odds I’m not sure if their staff is even lucid. The images below will explain.

Cy Young:

Based on the media hype, Felix Hernandez is garnering immense support lately, and here he’s not even listed. In that respect the Field at +400 looks gorgeous, to a lesser extent David Price has minimal value. Honestly I think with CC’s most recent performance he pitched himself right out of the race, and its down to Price and Felix.

The NL is OTB, regardless when they are released Halladay is the clear winner.

MVP:

Nothing has changed much since I last posted on the awards race. Cano still has some value at 5/1 and Sportsbook.com has failed to list Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki in the NL. What is sportsbook.com serving its employees? They have clearly failed to embrace reason here. Although I should say it probably doesn’t matter because Votto is the likely winner, with a high degree of certainty.

These are my latest MVP and Cy Young odds, updated from last week. I explained the process here, here, and here. Basically its taking various statistics that are crucial to pitcher/player performance and running a regression with voting points, using the years spanning from 2000-2009. What is interesting is a playoff appearance virtually decreases a pitcher’s chances of winning a Cy Young award, while the opposite is true for the MVP award. Now this could be just random variance, and over time the voting points may tend to be distributed towards players on teams that are more competitive. This year is the ideal scenario to test that statement, with King Felix, Sabathia, and David Price encompassing the tangible notion of team success breeding individual awards. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. I think reciprocal altruism may play a part in the Cy Young award voting, simply because of the naming conventions. Perhaps I’ll address this concept at length. Reading W.D. Hamilton, Dawkins, and John Maynard Smith is a hobby of mine, so I’m semi-familiar with the concepts involved. If you are struck with curiosity, I suggest you refer to the above authors to have your consciousness raised on the matter.