ESPN MLB

Originally Published: August 31, 2009

BP Daily: Mauer won't win MVP

Based on the new JUMP metric, the Twins' catcher is out of the running for the award

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By Jay Jaffe
Baseball Prospectus
Archive

As the recent scrum between supporters of the MVP candidacies of Joe Mauer and Mark Teixeira reminds us, nearly every Most Valuable Player Award is capable of producing controversy. Not only do the voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America rarely elect the player who, via some objective formula, is worth the most wins to his team, they appear to shift their standards from year to year. In recent seasons, defensive value has been minimized or entirely ignored in favor of heavy hitters with big Triple Crown stats, almost invariably from successful teams.

The question is whether the voters' behavior can be predicted. Towards that end, I was tasked with building an MVP predictor in the spirit of a system such as Bill James' Hall of Fame Monitor, one that awards points for various levels of achievement in an attempt to identify who will win, as opposed to who should win.

To learn about the JUMP metric and who it says will win this year's MVP races, you must be an ESPN Insider.

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