Using math model, NJIT professor names MVP and Cy Young award ...(pBukiet's model places Milton Bradley of...),Health

New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, Cleveland Indian pitcher Cliff Lee and outfielder Carlos Quentin of the Chicago White Sox round out the top five MVP candidates in the AL, contributing 4.1, 4 and 3.5 wins respectively to an otherwise average team. After Halladay and Lee, Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, Ervin Santana of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Jonathan Papelbon of the Boston Red Sox round out the top five AL pitching performances.

In the National League (NL), Derek Lowe of the Los Angeles Dodgers deserves the Cy Young award. "His performance would have garnered 3.4 extra wins," said Bukiet. "The Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels, San Francisco Giants' Tim Lincecum, Arizona Diamondbacks' Dan Haren and New York Mets' Johan Santana also numbered among his NL top 5 pitchers with performances worthy of 3.3, 3.2, 2.9 and 2.8 extra wins, respectively.

Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals) is Bukiet's Most Valuable Player in the Major Leagues. "His performance would have led an otherwise average team to nearly 87 wins," said Bukiet. While Pujols would have added 5.8 extra wins to the team, other remarkable players included Chipper Jones (Atlanta Braves), Hanley Ramirez (Florida Marlins), Lance Berkman (Houston Astros) and Matt Holliday (Colorado Rockies). All would have contributed 5.3, 5.1, 5 and 3.9 extra wins, respectively.

Bukiet's method studies each player's annual season statistics. He then applies a Markov process approach to modeling production of runs in baseball games. Bukiet first presented this mathematical model in 1997 in Operations Research. His method predicts how many games a team should win per season, the expected influence of trades and whether to wager on a game. Bukiet
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