The final group of nominations in this year’s awards!
It’s going to be an all-position player ballot for the 2024 SnakePit MVP award, after no pitchers received any nominations for the final category. But considering only Zac Gallen finished in the top ten by average WAR, and he was already honored as our Pitcher of the Year, I think I’m largely fine with that! Your nominees are:
Ketel Marte
Nominated by BeTeaBaseball. “ He was driven from February to October and his play was solid throughout. He hit a ton of 1st inning homers and a ton of 9th inning homers, many of which made an important difference in the outcome of the game. He was the story of the season on the positive side.” For the record, Ketel hit thirteen first-inning home-runs, behind only Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber, and another nine during the ninth inning, the most for the latter since Justin Smoak hit ten in 2017. All told, in the ninth he hit .395/.426/1.023 for an OPS of 1.449. That figure was the highest major-league OPS in the ninth inning (min 25 PA there) since 2019, when Christian Yelich went 19-for-38 with seven HR.
Gabriel Moreno
Nominated by IndySnakes. “The difference in the pitching and defense when he is playing.” It was palpable. When pitchers threw to Moreno, their ERA was 4.36; to everyone else, it was more than half a run higher (4.88). Now, catcher ERA is imperfect, to put it mildly. But simply in controlling the running game, Moreno’s superior value over the alternatives was apparent. He allowed forty SB in 732 innings, one every 18.8 IP. The rest of our catchers? 69 in only 711.1, a stolen-base every 10.3 IP. He also caught sixteen attempted thefts; everyone else, a total of nine. His rate of passed balls and wild pitches was better, and he was superior at pitch-framing too.
Joc Pederson
Nominated by DbacksEurope. “It is the first time that the DH position has contributed this much to a team. Joc’s OBP was an outstanding .393, his OPS+ of 152 was a career high. Not bad for a supposed “platoon” bat who played over 130 games. Worth the nomination.” Before last year, the DH had been a full-time thing for Arizona in three seasons. The OPS they received from that position? .640, .704 and .678. This year? .891, and Pederson is a very large part of the reason why the team went from 27th-ranked to third by that metric at DH. He had 437 PA in that role: nobody else even reached a hundred, and everyone else combined received a total of 288.
Geraldo Perdomo
Nominated by kilnborn. “Perennial Perdomo Proposal.” Well, that was enough to get it to go red, despite being rather lacking in a detailed case! But particularly by bWAR, where Perdomo finished second to Marte, there’s certainly a case for his nomination. Like Jake McCarthy, it’s likely the win and a half difference between bWAR and fWAR was down to how the systems viewed his defense. But there is evidence the team simply missed Perdomo, to a very significant degree. Arizona was 59-39 when Geraldo appeared – a 98-win pace over a full season – and only 30-34 when he didn’t. That’s a big difference, and suggests his impact was greater than just his box-score.
Eugenio Suarez
Nominated by chronicles_of_the_desert. “Through June 11, Suarez was dead weight, bordering on a DFA. 66 games into the season, our veteran 3rd baseman, picked up for his “good vibes”, but mostly for his big bat, was slashing .197/.263/.312, with only 5 HR, good for a 60 wRC+, and worth -0.2 fWAR. After June 11? .297/.357/.579, with 25 home runs and 71 RBI, good for a 153 wRC+ and 3.9 fWAR, pulling him right to the line of two key metrics of a successful slugging year: 30 HR and 101 RBI. The only player better than him during that time was (who else?) Marte, but I think Suarez’s monster second half deserves recognition. Doesn’t hurt that he was a solidly reliable glove at 3B, too.”
Here’s the poll. I’m fairly confident I have a good handle on who is going to win this, but that’s why we ask the question! As ever, feel free to explain yourself in the comments.