Think about it.

The prospect that Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts won’t play in all the Colts games this season has everyone discarding his team’s chances at making the playoffs. They are an afterthought because we think they can’t win regardless who is their quarterback if it’s not Peyton.

Hasn’t Peyton then already made his case for league MVP by being noticed for perhaps not even playing?

How can one player mean that much to a team, and a league, that their absence changes the entire competition and its outcome?

PITCHER IN THE MIX

So by comparison it is not hard for me to make a case for Detroit Tigers’ pitcher Justin Verlander to be named the American League MVP at the end of this season.

In fact I do not have to make the case. His stats are very telling about his importance to the Tigers and all of baseball this season.

Contrary to those who try to debate it sometimes pitchers do win the MVP award in baseball even if they also qualify for their own pitching award (Cy Young) for being the best at the position.

Every year there should be a pitcher in the mix for league MVP because the best teams always have ace pitchers that like clockwork win games for their teams.

Despite all the stats that get thrown out there nobody really debates the importance of consistent workhorse starting pitchers to get good teams (and this year a bad team) into the playoffs.

The other position players may be sometimes deemed irreplaceable but they have a one ninth impact on a baseball game that matters most only the four or five times they come to the plate. They never know if their at bat will matter on any given night, and the game is not always on the line when they come to the plate.

Pitchers are in a position to lose with their mistake on every single pitch.

The knock against starting pitchers being in the discussion for the MVP award is that they only play 35 to 40 games a season. They are by nature part-time players.

Of course we notice when C.C. Sabathia is out there, would the New York Yankees have won without him coming over in 2009?

But Sabathia is only a factor every five games, while the Yankees’ only official MVP candidate, Curtis Granderson, is out there every game and counted on to contribute to the offense.

The knock against that thinking is that at his best even Granderson will have awful games where he can’t beat the pitchers, and some of those pitchers are pretty average.

So Granderson is only driving in runs and getting on base in fewer than half his games.

If a pitcher, like Verlander was only winning in half of his 35 games we wouldn’t be writing this now.

EXCELLENT EVERY TIME OUT

It is even more important for a pitcher to be excellent every time out there when the focus is all on him, on his contribution to defense, as opposed to a hitter’s heroic and more glorious spotlight of run production, if he is to be named among everyday players as an MVP.

This may be what Tigers’ Manager Jim Leyland was thinking when he said he thinks that pitchers shouldn’t be in the MVP discussion over guys playing in 158 games. Never mind the pressure element of having to try and pitch an effective seven innings against nine guys who want to get a hold of one at that plate a minimum of 21 attempts (100 pitches) over those innings.

Leyland thinks like a batter – four trips to the plate and the work day is done. To Leyland baseball is a game of stamina.

Ironically Verlander is making Leyland look like a better manager lately more than any of his regular everyday players are.

The Tigers are in first place in their division by about six games over upstart Cleveland. They caught the Indians in the middle of this year after a slow start and they look to be headed to a playoff encounter in October versus either the Yankees or the Boston Red Sox as whomever wins the eastern division will probably get to face Verlander and the Tigers.

Foes of the Tigers really do understand what Verlander has meant to the Tigers this year. As Tom Hamilton, a play by play man with the rival Indians applauds Verlander for having “literally carried this club on his back” to put them on the doorstep of the playoffs. (John Lowe, Detroit Free Press)

Detroit isn’t a very good team. They are not worthy of getting to play either the Yankees or the Red Sox in the playoffs but that is what they will be doing in October because of Verlander.

VALUE OF VERLANDER

Consider these revelations that have been blogged about this Tigers’ season that underlie the value of Verlander:

The Tigers are below .500 in games in which Verlander hasn’t started.

Verlander has a personal record of 20 wins and only five losses.

Verlander won 14 of those victories after a Tiger’s loss.

Verlander pitched a no hitter this season at Toronto in May.

Verlander is the first pitcher to record 20 wins before the end of August since Curt Schilling did it in 2002.

Verlander with his 20-5 record is +15 above .500 and outperforming his entire team which is only +13 over par this year. Meaning without him they would be below a .500 win percentage as a team.

That means all the other pitchers on the Tigers as of last week were 37-37, so flip a coin each day if you were betting on a Tiger win with anyone on the mound not named Verlander.

The Tigers earned run average with their other four starters combined was 4.71 a full two and a half runs per game against more than whenever Verlander pitched (2.28).

Verlander right now leads the American League in strikeouts and batting average against as well as the all important WHIP (walk/hits per inning pitched) statistic.

For those who like to play with the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) numbers – and keep in mind most ace pitchers should be 4.0 or greater in wins above replacement – Verlander has a 7.4 score.

That means if Verlander was not on the Tigers his team would be 7.4 wins worse, and I assume his replacement is probably the next best pitcher on the team so they would have to promote a sixth guy into the rotation and they would be that much more awful.

MATH IS NOT FUZZY

The WAR number is not needed to evaluate Verlander’s contribution to the Tiger’s playoff hopes. Just like we don’t need any fuzzy math to determine that the Colts will miss Manning if he can’t be their QB. It is pretty obvious because he is a starting pitcher and you can measure his effectiveness every five games.

The other elite pitchers in baseball are comparable. Roy Halladay of Philadelphia is right behind Verlander at 6.9, and Yankee C.C. Sabathia scores 6.1.

Josh Beckett, the best pitcher on Boston, the team with the three other hitting candidates for MVP which should be the greatest competition to Verlander winning, is only worth 3.6 more than his theoretical replacement.

That actually means that without Beckett the Sox could miss winning their division in a close race - even more so than if a Beckett type player was left off the Tiger’s staff.

If Boston were missing a Verlander type pitcher even with all their great hitting there would now be a wildcard race in the American League. Right now (August 27), the teams chasing New York and Boston are too far back to be considered in any race.

That is how significant Verlander is to baseball. It is not even September yet, but if you put his performance on some other teams and add eight victories due to pitching then some of them make the playoffs just like Detroit will do.

If he were a position player the 7.4 WAR number would be very notable.

The top player in WAR is on a team that is not contending. Jose Bautista would be considered an MVP candidate for his slugging prowess with Toronto, and his 7.8 WAR is tops in the league ahead of Matt Kemp of the National League’s Dodgers.

Nobody expects those guys to be named MVP because their great efforts are with teams that will not make the playoffs.