The great MVP debate

This question was posed to me on Wednesday by a staff member who will remain nameless because of his questionable A.L. Cy Young predictions: Is Dustin Pedroia the MVP?

My first reaction was no. Fans, especially Red Sox fans, have a tendency to go nuts whenever a player or a team goes on a hot streak. Pedroia has had a hot week, even a hot month, so he’s suddenly the MVP? I like to think we can be a little more rational than that.

So, let’s be rational and look at the numbers. For our purposes today, we are going to look at how Dustin Pedroia, Josh Hamilton and Carlos Quentin rank in the A.L. batting categories.

Pedroia
Avg – .333 (1), Runs – 110 (1), HR – 17 (32), RBI – 76 (21), OBP - .378 (13), Hits – 191 (1), TB – 290 (3), Slg - .505 (18), OPS - .883 (16)
-Fielding note – The little man has made just six errors for a .991 fielding percentage this season.

Quentin
Avg – .288 (27), Runs – 96 (5), HR – 36 (1), RBI – 100 (4), OBP - .394 (6), Hits – 138 (33), TB – 274 (8), Slg - .571 (4), OPS - .965 (3)
-Fielding note – Quentin has made seven errors in the outfield for a .971 fielding percentage.

Hamilton
Avg – .301 (16), Runs – 86 (13), HR – 31 (4), RBI – 121 (1), OBP - .363 (27), Hits – 164 (7), TB – 295 (2), Slg - .542 (7), OPS - .906 (9)
-Fielding note – Hamilton has made seven outfield assists.

Statistically, you can make a strong case for Hamilton for MVP; he is near the top in every category except on base percentage, and he’s the only one of the three in the top 20 in all three Triple Crown categories. But the Rangers are just too far out of the playoffs, and his numbers aren’t big enough to make up for that.

At first glance the numbers don’t support Pedroia’s case. Quentin is in the top 10 in every category on this list except average and hits. Pedroia only cracks the top 10 in four categories, mostly because I included hits and average (which sometimes coincide) as well as total bases.

I will say this though, Pedroia’s strong showing in runs makes up for the fact that he does not do well in RBI, because he is a table setter, not a cleanup hitter (until recently) for the Red Sox. But where Quentin is deficient (batting average), he makes up for it with the sixth best OBP in the league.

And I know you can argue the intangibles: the hustle and the effort and how he gets his whole team going. But how is Carlos Quentin not just as important, if not more so, for Chicago?

The verdict: Quentin is my MVP today, but it’s closer than I thought. Quentin is hurt and Pedroia is surging, so I reserve the right to change my vote in October. In the end, only one of these teams may make the playoffs, and in a race this close, that could be all the difference.