FanPost

Let's Pass Out (the Hardware)

If you are like me at this moment, you are sitting alone in your—sorry, sitting next to a cat in your otherwise unoccupied—garret, hopeful yet terrified, and without even the benefit of appropriate medication (the alcohol awaiting the tolling of the Canonical Hour of Sext). The eyes of the world are upon us all as we teeter on the cusp of an historic decision. We will finally come to the end of this monumental contest between, on the one hand, all that is right and just in the world and, on the other, the dark and foreboding forces of a bloated and preening oligarchy, whose misguided footsoldiers, egged on by evangelizing faces familiar from our television screens, threaten to invade even such sacrosanct places as Ohio, the Birthplace of Presidents. Blood, both deep red and Cubbie Blue, seems likely to saturate The Land.

Hell, who said you have to wait until the Canonical Hour of Sext?

Let us take a moment to distract ourselves from the coming Armageddon with the annual Parsing of the RATBOP, el al. Unlike last year, the baseball season just concluded did not leave us with a select few of unchallenged heroes. What do Two O' Cats, Two O' Cats for Bats, RATBOP and xWL think, in a year crowded with candidates for Cy Young and MVP laurels?

For those unfamiliar with the terminology, Two O' Cats assembles a variety of categories—22 of them at the moment, ranging from pitcher WAR and ERA to FIP, RE24 and OPS-against—and ranks each league's hurlers in each category, assigning 10 points to the leader (who earns a Gold for his efforts), 9 to the runner-up (a Silver Medalist), 8 for third (Bronze), and so on. Getting tapped for the All Star Game nets you another five points. A five-star season is one in which you've earned 2/3 of the maximum point allotment (144 points right now, before the Cy Young and MVP voting); 4 stars is half of the max (108); 3 stars is 1/3 max (72 points); 2 stars is 1/4 (54 points); and 1 star is 1/5 (43 points).

Two O'Cats for Bats does the same thing with batting categories, but the top twenty get points, with 20 points for winning the Gold, on down to 1 point for 20th place, and the National League, with fewer players vieing for points because of the absence of the DH, has a factored point system in place: Medal Points—first, second, or third—retain their full value, and all other points are, for the years 2013 to date, multiplied by a factor of .89. In historical Two O' Cats tallying, that factor changes, depending upon how many categories are in play (RE24 and WPA were added in by BRef with the 1930 season, for instance) and how many teams are in the league.

RATBOP is known to all by now, right? Well, if not, google should work.

Let's begin with the AL Cy. We'll present the top Two O' Cat guys, with points and stars, followed by their Medals—categories in which they led the league, or were in second or third place. After those, their RATBOPs, and finally their expected Wins (Game Scores of 55 and up), expected Losses (45 and down), expected No Decisions (GSc or 46-54), and the Games Over .500.

Pitcher Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total RATBOP xW-L-ND Games Over
Verlander 156 5 5 6 3 14 1557 27-3-4 24
Kluber 138 4 2 3 3 8 1564 23-6-3 17
Porcello 137 4 2 6 0 8 1567 22-4-7 18
Sale 106 3 0 2 4 6 1595 23-7-2 16

Sale, who led most of the way, takes home the RATBOP crown by virtue of getting one more out in each of his starts than do his competitors. But for me, that eye-popping xWL of Verlander, plus his significant Two O' Cat advantage, have swayed me, and he has my (fictional) Cy Young vote.

In the American League MVP race, Mookie Betts has replaced Miggy Cabrera as the Trout tormentor du jour. Let's see how Two O' Cats views the contest.

Player Points Stars Gold Silver Bronze Total
Mookie Betts 359 5 1 5 3 9
Mike Trout 355 5 12 2 0 14
Jose Altuve 336 4 2 3 3 8
David Ortiz 320 4 6 5 2 13
Josh Donaldson 303 4 0 4 5 9
Miguel Cabrera 285 4 0 1 2 3

For those Trout acolytes out there, my best advice is to spare your emotions and save your breath for a later struggle. Yes, he led the league in a whole slew of categories, and no, he sure didn't benefit statistically from either Fenway Park's effects nor from having a whole slew of teammates on base all the time. It doesn't matter; Mookie will win. Comfort yourselves in the solace of knowing that Mookie is terrific, and you are enjoying the privilege of watching Trout, one of the great, if ever so slightly unsung, players to ply this most favored craft.

Among your Erie heroes, Carlos Santana is tops with 105 points, just shy of a star, and with a Bronze in BB. I am alone in all humanity in quivering with excitement at the unveiling of the MVP vote, because 'Los just needs a 16th or better ranking to get his coveted star. Jose Ramirez, with a Silver for two-baggers, had 83 points; Lindor, with a Bronze for defensive WAR, had 79. Rajai Davis collected 29 points, thanks to a Gold in SBs and a Silver in SB% (which, I forgot to tell you all, is one of those few 10-point-max categories). No medals for the others, but Kip had 32 points, Nap 30, and Chiz and Naquin 11 each.

My tolerance for coding has reached its end, and luckily we have reached the National League portion of this whimsy, so the truncation that follows is a relief to all, no doubt. First, in the Cy Young Sweepstakes, the Senior Circuit is a mirror to its Junior. The RATBOP champ is J. Cueto, at 1593, again by virtue of endurance cf. his confreres. Bumgarner follows at 1569, then Scherzer at 1561, Hendricks at 1543 and Lester at 1539. But Scherzer, like his ex-homie Verly, dominates Two O' Cats—158 to the runners up Lester (126) and Mad Bum (124)—as well as Medals—his 8 Golds and 12 total easily top runner-up Hendricks, in at 4 Gold and 9 total. Likewise, Scherzer has an edge in xWL, 25-4-5, +21; the irritating duo of Lester and Hendricks are both +20, with the former miscreant at 25-5-2, and the latter human mosquito at 23-3-4. I have no clue which way the writers will go, and don't care much, but Scherzer gets my hanging chad.

My first reaction to tallying the NL Two O' Cats for Bats was to wonder: Who the hell are these guys? Odubel Herrera? Piscotty? Yelich, Villar, Duvall, Lamb? DJ LeMahieu? Didn't he used to work at the Limelight? Where the heck are McCutchen, Bryce, Giancarlo? Ah, well, time passes. Before it gets away from us entirely, I will tell you that Freddie Freeman is the NL Two O' Cats for Bats Champeen, with 367 points (the only 5-star year), and he was followed by these 4-star guys: Nolan Arenado (323 points), Joey Votto (316), Kris Bryant (304), Daniel Murphy (278), and Paul Goldschmidt (265). At least Freddie didn't use Coors to corral his points.

Now let's go out and get some real hardware.

FanPosts are reader-generated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Covering the Corner or the Covering the Corner staff.