Here they are: (close calls are followed by the runner-up in parentheses)
AL EAST
Baltimore Orioles: Miguel Tejada (Brian Roberts)
Boston Red Sox: Manny Ramirez (David Ortiz)
New York Yankees: Alex Rodriguez
Tampa Bay Devil Rays: Julio Lugo (Carl Crawford; tough, but according to WARP2, Lugo's fielding puts him ahead of Crawford)
Toronto Blue Jays: Roy Halladay
AL CENTRAL
Chicago White Sox: Mark Buehrle (Jon Garland)
Cleveland Indians: Travis Hafner
Detroit Tigers: Jeremy Bonderman (no good choices; Bonderman's DERA is a mediocre 4.16)
Kansas City Royals: Mike Sweeney
Minnesota Twins: Johan Santana
AL WEST
Los Angeles Angels: Vladimir Guerrero
Oakland Athletics: Eric Chavez (Barry Zito)
Seattle Mariners: Ichiro Suzuki (Richie Sexson; Suzuki huge advantage in the field; Sexson huge advantage in EqA)
Texas Rangers: Mark Teixeira (Michael Young)
NL EAST
Atlanta Braves: Andruw Jones (John Smoltz)
Florida Marlins: Miguel Cabrera (Dontrelle Willis)
New York Mets: Pedro Martinez (Cliff Floyd)
Philadelphia Phillies: Bobby Abreu (Brett Myers)
Washington Nationals: John Patterson
NL CENTRAL
Chicago Cubs: Derrek Lee
Cincinnati Reds: Adam Dunn
Houston Astros: Roger Clemens (Morgan Ensberg)
Milwaukee Brewers: Carlos Lee (Ben Sheets; Lee's contributions this year are wildly overstated; he has a WARP2 of 3.9)
Pittsburgh Pirates: Jason Bay
St. Louis Cardinals: Albert Pujols (Chris Carpenter)
NL WEST
Arizona Diamondbacks: Shawn Green (Luis Gonzalez; it turns out Troy Glaus and Javier Vazquez are surprisingly unvaluable)
Colorado Rockies: Todd Helton (despite his injuries and general horror-show performance this year)
Los Angeles Dodgers: Jeff Kent
San Diego Padres: Jake Peavy (Brian Giles)
San Francisco Giants: Moises Alou
Whew. For those of you who got this far: thank you for indulging me in a thoroughly pointless exercise. Nothing like telling people exactly what they already know.
Actually, I guess the point of this list was to rebut all those analysts who are contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It's fine to draw attention to guys who you think are underappreciated, but there's no need to throw out hyperbole like "MVP of his team."
No, that status is reserved for guys like Julio Lugo. (I really need to stop writing about him.) But honestly, choosing the most valuable Devil Ray is like choosing the least genocidal Nazi.
Labels: mvp
