Baseball September 2009

The Game Room
141

Because you were the most valuable player. The most valuable player is the player who most helped his team win games. Even last place teams win a lot of games.

The award for team success is the World Series, not the MVP Award.

That’s a distinction without a difference. You cannot possibly argue that any player wins a pennant by himself; no player in the history of baseball has ever won a pennant on his own.

As mhendo points out, the logical extension of gonzomax’s argument is that you also can’t give the MVP Award to a player on a first place team that won by a large margin, since they’d have finished first anyway. No Yankee can be considered for MVP because there is no Yankee who made the difference this year between making the playoffs and not; you can take away any one player and they’d still have made it, and that might end up also being true of the Red Sox or Angels, at this rate, and maybe the Phillies. In fact I heard and read many people actually say Albert Belle should not win the MVP Award in 1995 because the Indians would have won even without him. It’s plainly absurd to suggest that the only valuable players in the major leagues are the ones whose teams are within five games up or down of a playoff spot, which is basically what you’re saying. Is Roy Halladay not valuable? Would you be willing to trade something to get Zack Grienke or Carlos Pena? If so, then why? By your argument here, none of those players have value.

Now, I admit that I think playing on a winning team should be considered, if for no other reason than if the team stinks you might want to look a little closer to see if he really was as valuable as you first thought. A lot of the players who get MVP votes who’re on bad teams are players whose cases are built on flashy stats, but when you look a little deeper they maybe were’t really that great. Andre Dawson in 1987 would be the obvious example.

142

RickJay, you know as well as I do what MVP is really considered. Don’t play semantics. It goes in most years to a great player on a contending team. It is influenced by late season pushes. It is pretty much everything you seem to dislike about traditional baseball. But it is the reality of the award.

Your argument might be logical, but it is not reality.

143

Dawson was a onetime fluke. There were plenty of experts who disagreed for the same reason I gave. To claim a player on a last place team won a bunch of games is tough to prove, baseball being a team game and all. How valuable is it to help win a few more games for a last place team?
When a player makes significant hits to win a pennant, that has obvious value. When a batter wins an extra few games for a last place team, what value does it have? That is the reality.

144

Cervelli is the Yankees second best catcher right now. He should be on the roster.

Let’s say for years we knew 1.9 + 1.9 was around 4. So we considered it 4 for decades. Then one person figured out it was actually closer to 3.9. Your arguments have been that we should keep considering it 4, even though we now know better, because we have always done it that way. We have gotten much better than ever before at determining which player provided the most value to their team. Not perfect, but much better. Your “because we always did it this way” attitude is the antithesis of growth.

Being a good hitter and not terrible on defense?

Jeter has been way more valuable than Teixeria even looking at just Yankees. I agree with Rick Jay though. Does it matter that the Yankees will win 105 instead of 98? If so how could any of their player’s be considered valuable as they were all easily replacable?

145

That’s the only year I can recall that argument ever having much currency, and it was blatantly obvious that year that sportswriters just wanted to vote for anyone other than Albert Belle, because Albert Belle was a complete jerk, but refused to say it because they wanted to look objective.

146

I’ll repeat it one more time. How valuable is it to help win a few more games for a first place team?

You could replace Derek Jeter with Tony Pena Jr. and they still would have won the AL East (probably… TPJ is so far below replacement it’s not really fair to use him in any discussions…).

The clear answer is that a win is a win, and contribution to a win has value. Whether it is win number 75 or win number 95 doesn’t make a difference, unless you’re looking for a reason to vote for a Yankee (as that ridiculous column posted above was obviously trying to do).

Oh, and how about Zack Greinke in Boston last night? Man sure can’t handle the pressure of the big stage, can he? Better vote for CC.

ETA: I always spell his name wrong…

147

Greinke did have a fine game (both in and for Kansas City, not Boston) last night, sure, even considering the nature of the game for the other team. But the question was, and is, how he’d do *with *Boston or another perennial contender. Perhaps we’ll find out when his contract is up.

Let’s not forget that baseball is a team game, not a collection of individual games. The most valuable player is the one who most helps his team win the most games. That’s inevitably going to be essentially subjective, no matter how offensive one may consider subjectivity to be. It even includes the dreaded intangibles.

But yeah, using it as a Lifetime Achievement Award is silly. That’s what the Hall is for.

148

Ah, sorry - thought the game was in Boston. I guess I just don’t buy the idea that you can’t just a player’s true value until they play for the Yankees or Red Sox. He’s a hell of a pitcher, and will be even if he never plays for either of those two teams. In fact, he is the best pitcher in the AL this year without playing for either of those teams.

I understand that argument, I just tend to disagree. To me baseball is a collection of individual contests with a team result. I have never seen any evidence that a team can be consistently, repeatedly greater (or less) than the sum of their individual players.

Well, the Hall is certainly for giving acclaim to Yankees, I’ll give you that :wink:

149

If baseball was not a team game sacrificing and working a pitcher for a walk would not be done? Why do that when a home run will make you more money.?Why hit in back of a runner to move him along the base paths if it is not a team game?

150

I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. Obviously the goal is for your team to score more runs. Any and all strategies to do that, including sacrificing, situational hitting, and drawing walks are employed. But every one of those strategies requires proper execution by individual players facing an individual opponent (I concede that teamwork is required for good defense, but I still think individual skill has greater influence).

The success or failure of those strategies can be easily measured, and the value produced defined. A good player will successfully sacrifice when called upon, a bad one will not.

But you can’t make a bad player valuable just because he knows how to bunt (although, comically, Tony Pena Jr. also cannot bunt… odd…). And a player that adds value adds it no matter what team he plays for.

151

You’re the one who started the semantic argument by asserting that valuable meant something distinct from “the best player.” I’m disagreeing with you. Is it okay if my opinion’s different?

Yes, thanks, I’m aware of that. and of course, you’d expect most MVPs to go to great players on contending teams, since the teams with the greatest players usually tend to be better than teams without any great players. I did not claim the MVP voters had always voted the way I would have. I thought we were discussing who SHOULD win.

152

What else is this debate, if not semantics? The single, central, and inescapable issue here is: how does one define “valuable,” in the context of the Most Valuable Player award. That is nothing BUT a semantic question.

For example, what is this:

if not a semantic argument? The only way that you can argue that the MVP “precludes non-contending teams” is to make a semantic argument about what “valuable” means. When you said “Don’t play semantics,” what you were really saying was “You should agree with my particular semantic interpretation.”

Well, i can’t speak for what RickJay likes and does not like about traditional baseball, but you’re starting to sound like ElvisL1ves now, claiming that people who disagree with you don’t appreciate the traditional things about baseball.

I love a late season run. The Rockies a few years ago were really exciting. Hell, i’d be happy as a clam if the Rangers or the Giants made a run for the wildcard spots by winning their last 12 games in a row. I also love watching great players play for contending teams. But none of that changes my opinion about the way the MVP should be evaluated.

I don’t recall anyone ever arguing differently. I conceded, early on in this debate, that the people who vote for these awards often do so on the basis of what i consider to be silly and irrational criteria. Wins for a pitcher? Give me a break.

I also realize that this is unlikely to change. But my position in this thread has never been one of denying reality. I realize that things are the way they are; i’m merely arguing that they should be different.

Huh?

This doesn’t even make sense. If baseball is, as you suggest, “a team game and all,” and if it’s “tough to prove” that a “player on a last place team won a bunch of games,” then why is it any more logical to assert that a player on a contending or first-place team won a bunch of games.

After all, if the simple act of proving an individual’s contribution to a “team game” is as difficult as you claim, surely it’s just as difficult if the team wins 60 games as if the team wins 100 games? And, as has been pointed out by more than one person, and not addressed at all by you, we could even make the argument that it’s actually harder to prove individual contribution on a good team, because there are a whole bunch of other good players around to keep the team winning.

I know you stats-phobes hate terms like VORP, but bear with me for a moment. The Baseball Prospectus guys have a stat called VORPr, which is like VORP, but expresses the figure as a rate-per-game instead of a season total. It basically gives some idea of how valuable a player is, on a per game basis.

Of the top 20 VORPr position players (min. 400 PA) in the American League this year, no fewer than 6 are Yankee starters–Jeter, Rodriguez, Posada, Teixera, Cano, Matsui. Damon is at #24. And that doesn’t include superstar pitchers like Sabathia and Rivera. There are a couple of real MVP-type candidates here, and yet losing any one of those guys wouldn’t have stopped the Yankees from making the playoffs this year.

Hell, even if we leave aside all the pencil-head stats like VORP, WARP, EQA, OPS+, or whatever, and just go by your gut, which team do you think suffers more, in terms of getting fewer wins: The Yankees without Jeter, or the Royals without Greinke, or the Twins without Mauer?

As RickJay noted, your criteria means that only those teams a few games either side of the post-season cutoff should really be considered for the MVP, which is simply absurd.

Excuse me a moment. I just have to reorient myself now that you’ve moved the goalposts again.

So now the criteria is “significant hits”? How many, exactly, do you need? Do you get extra points if it’s just one really big hit in a crucial game? Can you play like crap all year and win the MVP with four or five really big games in September?

I guess your next argument will be that Matt Holiday should have won the NL MVP a couple of years ago for the 13th-inning, face-first slide that put the Rockies into the postseason. After all, that was pretty damn significant. Or maybe umpire Tim McLelland should get the award for his significant call at home plate? :slight_smile:

153

I did not move the goalposts one damn inch. I make it pretty damn clear that I thing Valuable is an important part of the award. I contend that a player on a last place team can not be as valuable than a pennant contender. A player on a bad team, lives in a different world than the pressure packed ,every pitch is important world of a player in a tight race. How anyone can claim a guy on a last place team can point to his accomplishments and claim they could be considered as most valuable is daft. “I had a great year. With all I did for that team they wound up in last place. if they didn’t have me, they would have been in… last place. With or without me…last place. How much more valuable can a player be to a team” What a crock.

154

Bullshit.

The MVP should be viewed as what player would a GM most want to have had on his team that year. If Mauer was playing on the Royals, he’d still be the most coveted player in the American League this year, and GMs would scramble to sell their mothers to go back in time to get him on their roster. Why? Because he would add value to their team.

155

And with or without any one of their players, the Yankees would be in the playoffs. So by your own logic, no Yankee this year is a legitimate MVP contender. If the determination of MVP is whether a player individually affects where his team is in the standings, then any player who plays for any team that would have ended up in the same position without that one player cannot be MVP. You can’t give the MVP to anyone who plays for a team that would in first with or without them, second with or without them, and so on.

On the other hand, if a team just barely makes the postseason, your logic would dictate that everyone who made a positive constribution to that team is equally deserving of the MVP Award. Last year the White Sox made the playoffs by just one game, while the other teams that made the playoffs all made it bvy wide margins. So using the gonzomax logic, virtually everyone the White Sox had who was a good player should have been tied for the MVP Award; they should have given it to Carlos Quentin, Alexei Ramirez, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Mark Buerhle, Matt Thorton, Orlando Cabrera, and at least ten other guys. But they should not have given it to Dustin Pedroia, since Boston probably would have made the playoffs even if they hadn’t had him. That Pedroia was a better player than any White Sock is not relevant by your logic; the Red Sox won the wild card with him and would likely have won it without him.

156

I am literally dumbfounded. I feel like i’m trying to explain color to a blind man. There really is nothing more i can say, so i’ll just leave you with your beliefs.

157

Moving back to the actual races themselves, the Twins remain 2.5 back in the only really tight race left. They got a win tonight, but so did the Tigers.

The NL Wild Card got a bit closer, with the Giants and the Braves both making up a game on the Rockies, leaving Colorado’s lead at 4 with 10 games left. That sort of sounds like a reasonably close race, but it really would take a total collapse by the Rockies, combined with either SF or Atlanta taking at least 8 or 9 of their last 10. Pretty unlikely.

The AL Wild Card is done. For the 10th time in 15 years, it will be a team called Boston or New York. In this case, Boston. Texas are now actually closer to the Angels for the Division than they are to the Red Sox for the Wild Card. And they’re not going to catch the Angels.

Apart from that AL Central race, it really is time to start preparing for the playoffs. My only other regular-season concern now is whether my Orioles can manage to lose 8 of their last 10 and make it a 100-loss season. :frowning:

158

A lot of people are claiming yet again that the Yankees incredible offense will allow them to plow over the opposition in the playoffs. But, pitching dominates hitting. In All Star games where the best hitters in baseball play together you would expect 20 to 15 games. But it does not happen. Pitching shuts down hitting.
If the Yankees play Detroit ,they will face Verlander, Jackson and Porcello in a 5 game series. I would not bet the homestead that the Yankees would prevail because their offense is so good.

159

That is true, but the Yanks roll out CC, AJ and Andy and a better bullpen anchored by the best closer. So while the Yanks do not have an advantage in pitching, I think it is pretty close and the Yanks offense is far better.

160

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/10077162/MVP-award-deserves-robust-debate
Here is a sports writer who actually votes on MVP. He says criterion number one is “actual value of a player to his team”. Not who had the best year.