It’s Edwin Diaz by a nose in a crowded race.
This week’s Seattle Sidelines poll asked readers to pick the Seattle Mariners’ most valuable player at the All-Star break, and while the voters opted for Seattle’s closer by a smidgen, the vote was spread all over the place.
Here’s the full results:
While Diaz finished with the most votes, it was far from a majority as he received just 28.28 percent, and shortstop Jean Segura finished with just two fewer votes among 488 ballots cast, which I’m sure is within the margin of error.
This is a good illustration of how Seattle’s season has been a full team effort so far, with no single player carrying a disproportionate amount of the load. Four different players received double digits in terms of percentage, and all seven players listed received at least 20 votes. Even the “other” option got 13 votes, with one reader mentioning pitcher Wade LeBlanc by name.
Now let’s compare this to the analytics.
Wins above replacement (WAR) is a statistic designed to take into account all of a player’s contributions, regardless of variables such as league, home park, etc. There are two sources of WAR I tend to peruse, Fangraphs.com and Baseball-Reference.com. Here’s a chart of how the seven players from the poll rank via WAR. They’re listed in descending order based on cumulative total:
| Name | fWAR | dWAR |
| Jean Segura | 3.1 | 3.1 |
| Mitch Haniger | 2.7 | 3.5 |
| James Paxton | 2.9 | 2.1 |
| Marco Gonzalez | 2.4 | 2.2 |
| Edwin Diaz | 2.5 | 1.8 |
| Nelson Cruz | 1.9 | 2.0 |
| Dee Gordon | 0.6 | 0.6 |
So the analytic are in agreement about Segura being a top candidate for MVP at the break, but less so on Diaz. That’s not unexpected, as the analytics factor inning pitched in to a high degree and relievers don’t pitch many innings.
The player the analytics like who didn’t get a huge amount of support in the poll is Haniger, who the numbers essentially believe to be in a dead heat with Segura, but who finished fourth in the vote. This could simply be a matter of Haniger still building name recognition in his second full year in the majors.
Another disconnect seems to be about Gordon. The analytics really don’t like Gordon because he’s a .280 singles hitter who doesn’t walk, meaning he is a low-impact hitter. However the voters, who had Gordon third in the poll, clearly believe Gordon’s intangible contributions go far beyond the box scores.
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