DMN's Evan Grant votes for Michael Young as AL MVP

http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2011/11/justin-verlander-wins-mvp-one.html

The Dallas Morning News' Rangers beat writer, Evan Grant, has been taking heat all day for this pick. Just check his Twitter site here. Several blogs ripped him pretty harshly.

The discussion I'd like to have here, on the journalism board, isn't about sabermetrics and deserving MVPs. It's about whether this vote could have ever been taken seriously. You pick a guy on the team you cover, and you're going to take some flack for it. You pick a guy who is hugely popular with the media and plays for the team you cover and is almost certainly not the best player on that team and received no other MVP votes.

It's a tough vote to defend, though Grant takes a stab at doing so here, behind a paywall. He also made (significantly less ridiculing) headlines by leaving Dustin Pedroia off his MVP ballot in 2008, which I found here thanks to Football Bat in the Sports and News AL MVP thread.

From the column, via NBC Sports:

One of the things I found interesting is, in that 2008 Boston Globe blog post, Grant says OPS and batting average with runners in scoring position were "the numbers that to me mattered most." Young was fourth on the Rangers in OPS, which was good for 14th in the American League. Young did hit .377 with runners in scoring position, but Miguel Cabrera hit .388, Mike Napoli hit .372 and Jacoby Ellsbury hit .366.

There was never a chance the bloggers would take this vote seriously. But I really want to discuss whether anyone at all should take this vote seriously.

 

Another in the long line of reasons journalists should not vote on player awards.

 

Even setting aside the gramatical problem with this sentence, doesn't it tell you all you need to know? How can someone that presumably watches the Rangers much more than he watches any other teams expect us to accept his argument on his "eyes"? Judging by his Tweets, he appears to have dropped any hope of making a logical and coherent argument--his rhetoric has slipped to "I-just-thought-each-voter-was-entitled-to-his-own-opinion" levels.

 

In what way are any of the awards voted upon by the press to be taken seriously?

 

Forget it, Jake. It's Dallas, Texas.

 

Those are some pretty interesting numbers on how Young did when other key players were out. Kind of the definition of valuable.

It is an off-beat but compelling argument ... for giving him a fourth-place vote.

 

Voting for postseason awards should be taken very seriously.

Young finished eighth and he would have finished eighth even without Grant's vote. Someone else voted Young second and someone voted him third.

It's a strange vote that makes the eyes roll in large part because he voted for the local guy.

 

Isn't it worse that a writer completely left Verlander off his ballot?

 

Yes.

 

It's a strange vote because it is a ridiculous vote.

 

There is still sentiment among many baseball writers that the MVP award is for everyday players, because the pitchers have the Cy Young.

 

Is it really THAT crazy to vote for a guy who was third in the chase for the batting title and fifth in RBIs?

The field this year for AL MVP is seriously flawed, which in my opinion is why Verlander won. Everyone that had a big year has one problem or another; For Tiexiera and Granderson, its average. I think if either guy hit .285-.300 they win. For Gonzalez and Ellsbury, its the Red Sox collapse. Cabrera's power numbers were a tick off their usual pace; If he drives in 10 more runs or hits a couple more homers, he probably wins. Fact that no one was completely dominant opens the door a crack for others, and ultimately, Verlander.

Big 3 cattegories: Average, Homers, RBI. No one was in the top 5 of all 3 in the AL, and only Young, Gonzalez, Granderson and Teixeira were among the top 5 in two of the three.

I wouldn't have voted for Young but making it out like he Evan Grant voted for Josh Reddick or something is offbase. There have been far greater injustices; this is not crusade worthy.