He wasn't an embarrassingly bad choice like Bartolo Colon in 2005 (Johan says hi) or Justin Morneau in 2006 (isn't it funny that for all the "Derek Jeter is soooo overrated" stuff, he's never won an MVP, deserved or not? I'd trade all those undeserved Gold Gloves for that one MVP in 1999 or 2006.), but... yikes.
I am under the impression that David Wright lost out on that NL MVP - he had a .963 OPS for a ridiculous 149 OPS+, led the NL in WAR with a really impressive 8.4, and placed second in NL VORP behind Hanley Ramirez - because the year was 2007 and the Mets choked horribly. That wasn't, however, due to him. Here are his stats in August:
.394/.516 (!!!!)/.657/1.172
And September:
.352/.432/.602/1.034
Oh, and save April, he never OPSed below .900 in a month.
He also had 12 HRs and 41 RBI (RBI is a stupid stat, but you know) during those two months. On the other hand, let's check the Mets' team ERA over the season:
April 2.96
May 3.69
June 4.20
July 4.50
August 4.93
September 5.11
A lot of this is due to the fact that their relievers (and a good number of their starters) were a. not that good to begin with, so it's likely they were getting lucky early on and a regression to the mean was due; b. incredibly overused, so they were very tired by the end of the season.
The following are all from 2007, NL-only.
Fangraphs WAR:
David Wright 8.4
Chase Utley 8.0
Matt Holliday 8.0
Chipper Jones 7.1
Jimmy Rollins 6.7
(if you think pitchers should get MVP votes, and I don't, Brandon Webb had a 6.9)
BP WARP:
Albert Pujols 9.5
David Wright 8.7
Troy Tulowitzki 7.8
Chase Utley 7.6
Hanley Ramirez 7.2
Chipper Jones 7.1
Matt Holliday 7.1
Jimmy Rollins 6.5
(again, if you're counting pitchers, Jake Peavy had an 8.5 and Roy Oswalt a 6.6. Brandon Webb was tied with Jimmy with 6.5.)
BP VORP:
Hanley Ramirez 87.1
David Wright 81.6
Chipper Jones 77.0
Matt Holliday 76.4
Albert Pujols 73.9
Prince Fielder 70.3
Chase Utley 69.8
Miguel Cabrera 69.1
Jimmy Rollins 67.3
And yes, this is a system that gives more weight to shortstops, catchers, etc., having great offensive years.
(pitchers: Peavy 75.9)
So yeah. Jimmy Rollins didn't deserve that MVP so much. David, Matt Holliday, Prince Fielder, Hanley Ramirez, Pujols, and heck, even Rollins' own teammate that year, Chase Utley, deserved it more. Don't get me wrong, he had a great year and it's not like he was a horrible choice, but I think voters were very seduced by the Phillies' division comeback and Rollins' 30-30 year.
