All three of the top guys are worthy. It’s not the order I would have put them in, but I have no problems with it.
The wild card often has the second best record in the league, and divisions are arbitrary. Either the wild card deserves to make the playoffs or they don’t. This rule is the worst of both worlds.
The wild card still makes the playoffs, and still gets the short best-of-5 series where luck may prevail: but now they might be a .500 team with the 10th best record in baseball.
But at the same time, we also disrespect them by saying that a 102 win team has to play an 85 win team in a single gimmick game to get in, which clearly implies they don’t deserve to be in.
If you want to increase the chances of the better team moving on, here’s a thought: instead of adding a 1-game gimmick that spits in the face of baseball, betraying a total disregard for what the game is all about, increase the opening round series to 7 games. The longer the series, the more likely it is for the better team to win.
There is just as much chance of a race, but not such a compelling race.
Boston vs Tampa was an incredible race precisely because the reward was so great. Win the race, and you make the playoffs. Lose, and you’re out. No gray area.
Now there is nothing but gray area. Win the race, and maybe you’ll win the skills competition against team #7, the home run derby against team #6, and catch a greased pig faster than team #5, and be awarded a playoff berth. That’s baseball!
Similarly, a race to win the division instead of the wild card is nothing but gray even under the new rule. It still isn’t a knock-out situation for either team.
I think i would have given it to Bautista, but i think that failing to make the playoffs still has a big effect on whether some voters are willing to place you at the top of their ballot.
At least this, along with the Cy Young, might curtail gonzo’s periodic mutterings about how Verlander gets shut out of awards due to some never-quite-articulated prejudice against him.
Under that argument, we shouldn’t have a regular season at all. Just start a 30 team single elimination round on October 1. After all, we wouldn’t want to punish the team that had a poor April.
I understand your argument, and I am being facetious, but if you want to talk about who is the best team in baseball in a given year, April should count just as much as October. It is the best team of the year, not the best team in the last month of the year.
Missed the edit window. I also wanted to add that a one game playoff in baseball is absurd. I agree with it as it was formerly used because if teams were tied after 162 games, well, then it’s a coin flip as to the better team, so let’s put it all on the line for one game.
But to match up two non-tied teams for one game to see who advances is absurd. I know that “any team can win on a given day” is a cliche for all sports, but it is especially true in baseball. Even the worst teams in baseball have won 30 or 40 games a year.
If the 1899 Cleveland Spiders played the 1927 New York Yankees on one day, they could easily get a freak hanging breaking ball and win that game. Never in a 3 or 5 game series, though.
I agree with others upthread that Bud Selig’s purpose must have been to take me from a diehard MLB fan to one who doesn’t care anymore.
Well, as a Sox fan I’m biased and therefore fairly irritated on behalf of Jacoby Ellsbury, but as soon as the team collapsed in September I suspected he was going to pay the price, so I can’t say I’m surprised. I didn’t think there was a clear choice this year.
Ellsbury finishing second is a bit of a surprise. He had a great year but wouldn’t have been a deserving choice; if you’re going to give the award to a player on a non-playoff team, give it to Bautista.
Who the hell voted for Michael Young?
Meanhoo, Verlander is the 1st pitcher since Clemens to win the MVP. Ellsbury 2nd, Bautista 3rd.
I’m wondering which Red Sox or Blue Jays fan left Verlander off his ballot entirely.
A bit of a nitpick, but you’re not giving the worst teams enough credit – the teams in the basement typically win 60-70 games in a season, somewhere in the 30-40% win percentage range. The division losers in 2011 still averaged 66.3 wins (.409 winning percentage), with the worst of the worst, Houston, picking up 56 wins and the best of the worst, Florida, getting 72.
In a one-game baseball series, pretty much anything can happen, and often does. It’s meaningless and putting this into the playoffs is stupid.
Well, the argument is that Ellsbury’s defensive prowess more than makes up for him falling short of Bautista in offensive categories. Bautista is significantly below average and Ellsbury was one of the best defensive OF in the game this year. That being said, I believe you are a Blue Jays fan so we are probably not going to agree on this. 
However, I think we can both agree that whoever left Verlander entirely off the ballot should have their voting privileges stripped. The only possible explanations I can think of are:
- He believed that MVP is only for position players, since pitchers have the Cy Young
- He just plain forgot to write Verlander’s name
Nitpick; first starting pitcher. Eckersley won as a reliever in 1992.
Here’s your answer.
21%=No MVP award hands down, thats it, final
And yet it’s apparently not, given that Verlander won the MVP.
I’d be interested to see a comparison of the salaries of the top, say, twenty starting pitchers in the league vs. the top twenty position players. That’d be at least one way of seeing if pitchers could be considered as “valuable” as everyday players.
Not quite what you asked for, but 10 of the top 25 salaries in MLB this year were apparently starting pitchers.
“21%” doesn’t mean anything. The thing that convinced me pitcher candidacies are legit was this: Verlander faced (I think) 969 hitters this year. Bautista had 655 plate appearances and Ellsbury had 729. You can factor out the fact that the other guys play defense every day and Verlander is only out there one day out of five, but if they bat four or five times a game every game and he makes 30-something starts and faces 30-odd guys every time, that certainly works in his favor.
Sorry for quickie response – am holding sleepinf baby.
Jas. jt, all you say applies more to the WC at all. Playoffs dilute fairness already The WC should be at a big disadvantafe because the existence of it is a sop – the point of the season is to win your division and they didnt get it done. As it stands now there is a greater unfairness to treat a tea, that did the job equal to a team that didnt.
I don’t have an argument with Verlander winning, since the award doesn’t exclude pitchers, but it’s probably high time someone did that to erase the voters’ ambivalence. Rename it MVPP (with the additional P standing for Position), or rename it the Ted Williams award (not Babe Ruth, because he was a pitcher for a while. And I might have said Willie Mays or Hank Aaron, but you generally don’t name such things after people who are still living).
Let the BBWAA do something useful for a change. And on top of that, have them revoke the voting privileges of anyone who refuses to vote for first-ballot HoFers no matter how overwhelming the case for their indicuction is.