Nelson Cruz of the Seattle Mariners has had a phenomenal season at the plate, leading the AL in home runs, slugging, weighted on base average (wOBA), and weighted runs created plus (wRC+). Cruz has essentially already out performed his projected wins against replacement (WAR) for the entire four year contract he signed with the Mariners in the offseason by posting a 4.7 so far, with a likely 0.7 to 0.9 still to come. With such gaudy offensive numbers – .321/.388/.606 – Cruz’s name is sure to come up in the discussion of AL MVP candidates, along with Josh Donaldson of the Toronto Blue Jays and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels. But despite the boom stick argument in Cruz’s favor, his glove should stymie any serious discussion of an MVP award.
While Cruz has added roughly three wins above replacement level so far and almost four wins above the Mariners DH production for all of last year with six weeks to go, he has cost the team a game and a half by playing the outfield. His Fangraphs defensive metric, which is a hybrid of defensive runs saved (DRS) and ultimate zone rating (UZR), credits (or discredits) Cruz with -15.7 runs. In a run scoring environment that assumes a little under ten runs per win for either offense or defense, Cruz could have a 6.3 WAR if he just sat on the bench and DH’d or was even a league average fielder.
What’s even more remarkable about Cruz’s poor fielding is that he’s only played about 65% of the Mariners games in the field. The balance of the time has been as a DH. The UZR component of Cruz’s defensive metric would be twice as bad if projected out to a full season in RF.
His offensive numbers eclipse both Trout and Donaldson, but between fielding and base running (another category that finds Cruz lacking), Trout and Donaldson both add anywhere from a half a win (Trout) to a full win (Donaldson) beyond their bats.
Of the top ten AL players in WAR, only Mark Teixeira of the New York Yankees, Chris Davis of the Baltimore Orioles, and Prince Fielder of the Texas Rangers have negative defensive numbers, along with Cruz (Cruz is the worst). While conversely, Josh Donaldson and Jason Kipnis of the Cleveland Indians are making strong runs at gold gloves at 3B and 2B respectively.
If the award was for best hitter, Nelson Cruz would be a length and a half ahead in the backstretch, but because the award is for most valuable player, look for either Trout to bring home his fourth straight MVP (oh wait – I forgot – Triple Crown) or Donaldson to notch his first MVP.
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