Baseball Thread V

BYH, my friend, despite my previous post, I remind you:

 

Picking an MVP from a winning team isn't necessarily wrong. It's not necessarily right, either. There are no rules, only opinions, and that's how it has been set up by the BBWA. Rather than cut the Gordian Knot, it gives everyone a new piece of string to play with.
If Albert Pujols or Ryan Howard lead the league in both HR and RBI, but both their teams finish up the track as their pitching staffs continue to implode, why would that either guy LESS valuable? David Wright's terrific, but I don't think he's responsible for Pedro Martinez and Tom Glaivine being better pitchers than Ryan Madsen and the ghost of Mark Mulder.
BYH, I love your work. But not liking a player and his team is not grounds for MVP disqualification. One can disagree with picking A-Rod over Ortiz, but if two players have almost identical offensive numbers, their teams have identical records, and one plays the field while the other does not, picking the guy who also uses a glove as MVP is hardly illogical.
And in fairness, BYH, writers WITH votes use personal likes and dislikes all the time, though they shouldn't. Witness the rationale that in 1995 Albert Belle was not the MVP because his team won by too wide a margin. Sophistry at its finest. Or the ultimate, Ted Williams winning the Triple Crown twice and losing the MVP both times.

 

Similarly, Warren Spahn won 20 or more games 13 times, ended up with 363 wins in the Hall of Fame, yet won the Cy Young once. Once.

 

Dear Goalmouth: Part of Spahn's problem was being ahead of the Cy Young award's time. He won 185 of those 363 games before it was invented in time for the 1956 season. For the rest of his career, there was only one Cy for both leagues, meaning it was twice as tough to win as an MVP.
There's an excellent case to be made that Spahn is the most underrated player of all time, however. Pretty tough to lead the league in wins and complete games for five straight years and only wind up with one Cy.

 

That is precisely the utter innanity of the baseball writers in a nicely loaded post, Michael.

One everyday player simply does not have that much punch on a team's record in baseball.

How can Most Outstanding Player be anything but the Most Valuable Player in baseball, knowing how little the record is affected by a guy hitting .340 with 45 HRs and 130 RBI, when the team ERA is 4.80?

No need to PM my B--Y---H, Gee hammered that nail flush.

PS: I'm not predicting Soriano as MVP,either... I think his numbers will drop, too.

But if they didn't, we would have another crime scene on our hands.

 

Right you are, Mike, good points all.

 

All good points, but I still maintain that my vote for Ozzie Smith over Andre Dawson in 1987 was the correct vote when discussing value. Dawson was the Player of the Year, but Ozzie was the MVP, and if you don't agree, you don't fully understand my thinking. Where was Dawson's value when his team finished last? But please don't call me an inane baseball writer. I know what the guidelines are and I earned that vote. We can simply disagree on certain things, but I did have a vote that year and I don't think many of you did.

 

But technically, if you're rewarding winning teams, the Yankees beat out the Red Sox for the division title so the A-Rod > Ortiz vote was the right one. And it's not like the Red Sox advanced further in the playoffs.

I can't stand either team, but just saying ...

 

The Yankees only beat out the Red Sox because Francona continued to play Millar at 1st base even though he had Kevin Youkilis or John Olerud available on the bench.

Millar would have won the LVP last year. He was the Orkin Cockroach of the Year in my book.

 

Oz, one technicality. No one ever said your team had to win to be an MVP, just that it had to at least contend. That was my prerequisite when I was a voter, which I no longer am, and that should  make most of you happy. The race between Ortiz and ARod could have gone to either one in my opinion. It's easy to build a case either way.    

 

How an MVP can come from a last-place team is unimaginable.