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Final MLB Player Rankings For 2009 25th January, 2010 - 9:05 pm
 By Christopher Reina At RealGM, we use the Field Impact Counter (FIC) to objectively measure how effective players are performing and then use the Reina Value to evaluate their financial worth. The player with the highest FIC for the season, therefore, ?deserves? the highest salary, which is Alex Rodriguez?s $33 million contract for 2009. The player with the 308th highest FIC, 'deserves' Guillermo Mota's $2.35M contract for 2009. Click here for more information about the Field Impact Counter and the Reina Value. 1. Albert Pujols: 413, 129% Death, taxes and Albert Pujols has become a refrain celebrating the certainties of life. Pujols is sixth all-time in OPS+, behind just Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig and Rogers Hornsby. Pujols led the MLB in a rather large handful of offensive categories, while also playing an excellent defensive first base. 2. Zack Greinke: 310, 536% Greinke narrowly beat out Tim Lincecum in Fielding Independent ERA during the 2009 season, while striking out 9.50 batters per nine innings and stringing 79.3% of his runners. Undoubtedly, Greinke was one of baseball's greatest stories of the season. 3. Justin Verlander 306, 488% Verlander was ranked 22nd in ERA, but his FIP brought him up to fifth and he also struck out batters at a rate of more than 10 per nine innings, putting him as the only pitcher within striking distance of Lincecum. 4. Roy Halladay: 305, 15% Halladay was aided here by his nine complete games, but he also an impressive sixth in FIP, while enjoying the highest strikeout rate of his career during a full season. 5. Felix Hernandez: 304 35% Hernandez's FIP dropped to 3.09, much closer to where it was during his 2005 call-up when he became an ace sensation than where it hovered (3.91, 3.75, 3.80) during the three seasons in-between. Hernandez decreased his walks by nearly one per nine innings, while also dropping his batting average against 30 points. 6. Tim Lincecum: 303, 2823% Lincecum's second consecutive Cy Young has created the addition of Hy Young to our vocabulary and the award given to each league's best pitcher might need to be renamed if he captures the threepeat. Nobody touched Lincecum in terms of strikeouts, while he reduced his WHIP from 1.17 in 2008 to 1.05 in 2009. Not surprisingly, Lincecum's FIP dropped from 2.62 to 2.34, which was just one tenth of a point behind the AL Cy Young Greinke. 7. Prince Fielder: 298, 171% Prince Fielder was one of just three MLB hitters to finish the season with an OPS over 1.000. Fielder is striking out more than he did in 2007, but he is also walking with greater frequency. 8. Joe Mauer: 286, 80% Mauer is about 300 days away from being one of the wealthiest athletes of all-time. Mauer has always been one of the game's finest pure hitters, but he completely busted out in the power department in 2009, posting a .222 isolated power mark, which torched his previous highs that always were firmly in the .100s. 9. Adam Wainwright: 284, 573% Like teammate Chris Carpenter, Wainwright's ERA (2.63) looked not quite as strong when looking at his FIP (3.11). Nevertheless, Wainwright struck out better than eight batters per nine innings while being a workhorse for St. Louis. 10. CC Sabathia: 278, 21% Sabathia was clearly aided to a top-10 finish by his 19 wins, but his mortal 3.39 FIP was inflated in large part to a slow start with the Yankees. Sabathia was excellent in the second half, with ERAs of 2.64 and 1.29 in August and September respectively. Most important, though not included here, Sabathia inspired more confidence from his team with each postseason start than we've probably seen since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling during Arizona's 2001 World Series run. 11. Dan Haren: 275, 140% Haren did not quite match the numbers of his first season in Arizona in terms of FIP (3.23 compared to 3.01), but he nudged his numbers up in terms of strikeouts, walks and BAbip. A newfound propensity for the long ball, though a manageable 1.06 per nine innings, inflated his numbers just slightly. 12. Mark Teixeira: 271, -13% Even as Mark Teixeira has played for four different teams between 2007 and 2009, he has remained incredibly consistent, with an OPS+ of 149, 152 and 149 during the timeframe. 13. Javier Vazquez: 270, 48% Vazquez had one of the MLB's most underappreciated seasons in 2009, something Brian Cashman hoped to capitalize upon with his offseason acquisition. Vazquez had the third best FIP in all of baseball, while having an excellent 9.77 K/0 rate while being very stingy in the WHIP department. Those numbers created a career season for Vazquez in terms of allowing runs, though he has historically been a strikeout pitcher. 14. Chase Utley: 268, 48% Utley had an excellent 2009 and could have set all sets of records at second base had he not been slowed down by his hip injury. 15. Ryan Braun: 267, 1508% Braun's power production dipped slightly from 2008 to 2009, but he decreased his strikeouts, increased his walks and his BAbip jumped from .308 to .355, near where it was during his rookie season. 16. Josh Beckett: 265, 48% Beckett began to break down in the second half, but he still had a very fine season, posting a 3.63 FIP and a strikeout rate above 8.40 per nine innings for the third consecutive season. Beckett's FIP has increased in each of the past two seasons, but he was still one of the game's best aces when right. 17. Hanley Ramirez: 254, 182% Ramirez ranked seventh in OPS+, as even though his home run power dipped, he increased his doubles, increased his BAbip to a remarkable .384 and decreased his strikeouts. Ramirez has also continued to sort out his defensive play at shortstop from those miserable 2006 and 2007 outputs. 18. Cliff Lee: 253, 155% Lee was able to enjoy a second half of NL hitters and postseason baseball in the interim before the Phillies were able to finally acquire Roy Halladay. The 2008 AL Cy Young didn't experience much of a drop-off, with his FIP subtly jumping from 2.83 to 3.11. 19. Dustin Pedroia: 252, 770% The 2008 AL MVP was 80th in OPS+ in 2009 after finishing 51st. He remained hugely productive at the plate and in the field, one of baseball's best all-around young players. 20. Jered Weaver: 249, 3126% Weaver is quite a bit higher than he probably should be, given his 4.04 FIP, but a 16-8 record and 196 strikeouts clearly aided his efforts in the FIC department. 21. Josh Johnson: 248, 971% Johnson was possibly the best pitcher in the game for a short stretch to begin 2009; he eventually came back slightly to the pack, but he still finished seventh in FIP, behind Halladay. Unquestionably, Johnson is one of the game's best young pitchers when he is healthy and he was rewarded by Florida's front office when they received an edict to increase their payroll. 22. Chris Carpenter: 248, 13% Carpenter was a Cy Young candidate, but as this ranking evidences, there were several more qualified candidates, including his own teammate. Some of that is because the FIC rewards simply putting in innings and dominating hitters via the strikeout, something Carpenter was lacking in. But to his credit, Carpenter was ranked fourth in FIP with a 2.78 mark. 23. Jon Lester: 247, 1400% Lester's 2009 season is why advanced statistics are so crucial to evaluating. He had a jump backwards in ERA, but his FIP improved from 3.64 to 3.15 while his K/9 rate made a huge leap from a pedestrian 6.50 to an excellent 9.96. If Lester is able to sustain that strikeout rate in 2010, he should be one of the odds-on favorites to win the Cy Young. 24. Adrian Gonzalez: 245, 374% Gonzalez finished fourth in the MLB in OPS+ with a mark of 166. San Diego elected to retain him for now, but it will be interesting to see how his numbers adjust when he moves to a more hitter-friendly park and a stronger lineup than what the Padres can surround him with. 25. Matt Cain: 241, 400% With all of the lack of run support Matt Cain has received during his first three full seasons in the bigs, I think we can overlook a FIP that showed his ERA was inflated by almost one whole run. Cain has been a consistent innings-eater, but he certainly isn't the kind of pitcher who will frequently have sub-3.00 ERA seasons like he did in 2009. 26. Ubaldo Jimenez: 240, 1824% 27. Matt Holliday: 238, 7% 28. Wandy Rodriguez: 237, 448% 29. Derrek Lee: 234, 6% 30. Joe Nathan: 233, 24% 31. Jair Jurrjens: 231, 3011% 32. Ben Zobrist: 231, 3266% 33. Victor Martinez: 229 137% 34. Ian Kinsler: 228, 322% 35. Randy Wolf: 226, 170% 36. Bronson Arroyo: 225, 168% 37. Adam Lind: 225, 3118% 38. Jonathan Broxton: 225, 618% 39. Mariano Rivera: 224, -13% 40. Derek Jeter: 224, -40% 41. Scott Baker: 223, 1633% 42. Miguel Cabrera: 223, -10% 43. Joel Pineiro: 223, 73% 44. Edwin Jackson: 222, 491% 45. Todd Helton: 221, -22% 46. Jason Bay: 220, 63% 47. A.J. Burnett: 220, -24% 48. Heath Bell: 219, 896% 49. Ryan Dempster: 214, 39% 50. Jorge De La Rosa: 214, 522% |