Posted by Doug Thorburn on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 3:41 pm

The next few weeks will be prime time for award voting and analysis, with debates over MVP’s, Cy Young’s, Gold Gloves, and Rookies of the Year.  The top bats, arms, and leather will all be scrutinized under a microscope, but there are more players whose performance might slip under the radar.

One category that goes unrecognized by the BBWAA is the group of players that showed the most improvement this past season. These athletes demonstrate the dividends of player development, which is the centerpiece of conversation at the Baseball Operations table. While minor league performance is the focus of that discussion, progress at the highest level is paramount to player development.

In the spirit of regular season awards like the Silver Slugger and the Gold Glove, we can invent a new award for improved performance, give it a slick name, and dole one out for every position on the field. Let’s call it the Diamond Development Award, and see if De Beers wants to cough up some dough for sponsorship rights.

To qualify for the award, a ballplayer needs to have the best season of his career. The rankings are based on VORP, a stat from Baseball Prospectus that combines a player’s offensive contributions into a single number, reflecting runs produced above a “replacement-level” baseline. The method of choice is to subtract the VORP of a player’s best previous season from his 2009 total to find the amount of offensive improvement for the year.

VORP is a counting stat, so playing time has a direct impact on the rankings. Strong performance is also necessary in order to keep a player’s VORP above the zero barrier of replacement level. It generally takes at least a 2-win improvement to take home the trophy at a specific position.

Typical development patterns dictate that veteran players will rarely make the list, and most vets with big seasons have either done it before or have come pretty close. Instead, the list favors players in their mid-twenties who still have room for further development. These players are too experienced for Rookie of the Year, and haven’t quite reached MVP or Cy Young status, but they are in prime range for a Diamond Development Award.

Rookies are excluded from the ballot, and there is a qualifying threshold of 200 minimum plate appearances in any previous MLB season. The slash numbers following each winner represent his 2009 VORP / highest single-season VORP entering 2009 / VORP improvement. Listed ages are as of October 5^th, the day after the end of the regular season.

The envelope, please…

Catcher – Joe Mauer, Age 26, (91.0 / 67.4 / +23.6)

Mauer continued his development into one of the top players in the game, finishing the season with the 2^nd highest VORP among position players, trailing only Albert Pujols. He also led the majors with a VORP rate (VORPr) of 0.650 runs above replacement per game.

Honorable Mention: Miguel Montero’s 28.0 VORP on the season was 21.5 more than he had collected in any previous season. The results were largely driven by an increase in playing time, but Montero also put up some great numbers in his extra at bats to produce a solid campaign for the D’Backs.

First Base – Kendry Morales, Age 26, (39.8/4.1/+35.7)

Morales spent parts of the last 3 seasons in the bigs with the Angles, but had never amassed more than 216 plate appearances in any season, and he came to the plate just 66 times in 2008.  But Morales went nuts this past season, smashing 79 extra-base hits and driving in 108 runs on the year, providing a spark to the Halos’ offense that helped to ease the off-season loss of Mark Teixeira.

Honorable Mention: 23-year old Billy Butler (+21.3) took a huge step forward in his third season in the bigs, displaying the hitting skills that he has shown throughout the minors. His MLB experience of 1500 plate appearances at such a young age is a great indicator for the future, and there’s a good chance that he’ll compete to win the Diamond Development Award (DDA) in 2010. Joey Votto (+16.3) and Adrian Gonzalez (+11.8) also stepped up their performances in 2009, establishing themselves as the most feared bats in their respected lineups.

Second Base – Ben Zobrist, Age 28, (61.0 / 14.6 / +46.4)

Zobrist played all over the ballpark in 2009, but the biggest chunk of his playing time came with 91 games at the keystone. He built upon a strong 2008 showing with a stellar campaign, finishing ninth in the majors in total VORP, just behind Chase Utley. Zobrist had 372 additional plate appearances in 2009, but his improvement is also demonstrated by a jump in VORP rate, which shot up from 0.235 to 0.434 runs per game. 

Honorable Mention: The Royals’ Alberto Callaspo rode a big increase in playing time and an .800 OPS to post a 27.4-point jump on his 2008 VORP. Veteran Aaron Hill had a career year at age 27, finding his power stroke and registering a VORP 13.4 runs higher than his previous best.

Third Base – Ryan Zimmerman, Age 25, (52.9 / 26.4 / +26.5)

Zimmerman has been hearing the Scott Rolen comparisons for years, and though his glove already answered that call, his bat had yet to respond to the challenge. That changed in 2009, his 4^th full season in the Show, as Zimmerman stepped up to post an OPS 60 points above his career best, and 100 points higher than either of the last two seasons. Rolen was about a year younger when he saw his big performance spike, but Zimmerman looks like he could go on a similar run for the next 5 years.

Honorable Mention: Mark Reynolds stoked fantasy players everywhere with his combination of power and speed, and his VORP gain of 23.4 put him just behind Zimmerman for the Diamond Development Award. Sophomore Evan Longoria built upon his outstanding rookie season with 19.0 extra VORP. The biggest improvement from the hot corner came via Pablo Sandoval, whose rookie status disqualified his league leading 64.0 VORP at the position.

Shortstop – Jason Bartlett, Age 29, (58.3 / 16.3 / +42.0)

Perhaps no player on this list defied expectations with his 2009 performance more than Bartlett. Previously considered a glove-only shortstop with a sub-.700 OPS, Bartlett’s bat was a weapon to be reckoned with last season, as he sported a .320/.389/.490 line with 30 steals for the Rays.  

Honorable Mention: Shortstops Marco Scutaro (+24.0), Asdrubal Cabrera (+22.5), and Erick Aybar (+21.2) all had career years at the 6-spot, while Rockie Troy Tulowitzki rebounded from a rough 2008 season and bested his breakout 2007 VORP by 14.1 points.

Left Field – Carlos Gonzalez, Age 23, (22.4/-6.6/+29.0)

There was a lack of depth in left field for improved players, and candidates for the award were scarce. The player who made the biggest leap was NLDS standout Carlos Gonzalez, whose 2009 VORP of 22.4 beat his 2008 value by 29.0 points, thanks to his playing below replacement level by 6.6 runs while with Oakland in 2008.

Honorable Mention: It’s tough to see with the raw numbers, but the standout season enjoyed by Raul Ibanez was actually less productive than some of his years in Seattle, based on the translations according to VORP. Juan Rivera of the Angels improved upon a 2008 season that was 0.8 runs below replacement level, putting up 22.4 VORP in 2009 for a net gain of 23.2 runs.

Center Field – Michael Bourn, Age 26, (32.6 / 6.4 / +26.2)

Bourn seriously turned around his disaster season of 2008 to become a valuable run-scorer for the Houston lineup. Bourn’s previous high of 6.4 VORP was posted with just 133 plate appearances during the 2007 season, but 2008 saw him dip to 11.8 runs below replacement level thanks to a .229/.288/.300 line in 514 trips to the dish. He might be a one-trick pony, but Bourn made the most of it, gaining 44.4 points of VORP this year when compared to 2008.

Honorable Mention: Jacoby Ellsbury is another speed demon that made big gains in 2009, topping his rookie VORP by 25.0 runs, finishing with a total of 41.1 on the season. Other notable improvements came from Denard Span (+16.3) and the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp (+14.2). Overall, 2009 was a bad year for many of the top center fielders, with difficult seasons for Carlos Beltran, Grady Sizemore, Josh Hamilton, and B.J. Upton.

Right Field – Justin Upton, Age 22, (41.4 / 8.7 / +32.7)

Upton didn’t take long to vault himself into the realm of the elite. A 21-year old for most of the season, Upton started the year in a funk, and was dropped to 8^th in the order for a spell during the opening weeks. He then tore off an 18-game hitting streak from late April to early May, and spent the rest of the summer raking the yard with National League pitchers. A rough September cost Upton 50 points of OPS on the season, but he still finished with a .300/.366/.532 line in 588 plate appearances. The only thing that could derail J-Up was an oblique injury that took him out of the lineup for 3 weeks. Combining that missed time with his age, talent, and learning curve indicates that we might very well see his name on the DDA list again in the near future.

Honorable Mention: Shin-Soo Choo (+20.6) continued to contribute across the board in his first full season for the Indians, providing a healthy dose of speed, patience, and pop. The power/speed combo was a key ingredient to improvement for middle outfielders in 2009, with big development seasons from Ranger Nelson Cruz (+12.1) and Jayson Werth (+11.3) of the Phillies.  

Designated Hitter – Adam Lind, Age 26, (58.3 / 8.1 / +50.2)

Lind played 55 games in left field, but spent most of his time at DH due to the Jays’ outfield depth this season. His monster season featured a .305/.370/.562 line with 46 doubles, 35 bombs, and 114 RBI. The gain was enough to earn him top honors for 2009 Improvement of the Year, with his 50.2-point increase representing the greatest jump of the season.

Honorable Mention: Jason Kubel (+23.9) provided an unexpected boost to the Twins offense in 2009, giving opposing pitchers another lefty to fear beyond Mauer and Morneau. Like Lind, Kubel put in less than 60 games of work wearing a glove in the outfield, spending the rest of the time at DH. 

Mechanics, stuff, pitch recognition, reaction time; all are aspects of player development, and mastery of these elements is necessary to succeed on the main stage. The players on this list have all made huge gains in their offensive production in 2009, and the award winners represent a wave of young talent that could be in the running for future MVP awards or Silver Sluggers. In the case of Joe Mauer, those rewards might just be realized in the next few weeks.

Several young hitters made huge offensive strides this season, but there were also a handful of pitchers that took the great leap forward. In the next edition of the DDA’s, we’ll take a look at those pitchers that made the biggest performance gains in 2009.