The Ol' Ballfield

Most Valuable Player

This is straight from the BBWAA, the criteria for "Most Valuable Player":

There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.

The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:

1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
4. Former winners are eligible.
5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

All right. A couple comments:

1. "The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier". It seems to me that if this were specially noted, in 1931, that it indicates a strong suggestion to not consider a team's finish in the MVP voting. It CERTAINLY indicates that a team's good standing need not affect the voting.

2. "Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense." This, also, to me indicates an attempt to seperate player from team in the voting.

Last season, according to WARP, AL MVP Alex Rodriguez was responsible for nearly 11 wins. That's 11 wins whether he played for the Yankees or the Royals. 11 wins is 11 wins. Whether you trust WARP or not, Rodriguez's contributions are still the same, no matter what uniform you Photoshop onto his body. If Rodriguez is on the Royals and puts up the same numbers, he doesn't win. If he is on a fringe team and puts up the same numbers, he might win. I cannot understand this.

There are so many conflicting ideas put across about the MVP. Why do the same people who maintain that MVP does not mean "best player" (including the character and games stipulations above), use MVP's as a Hall of Fame criterion? If an MVP-type performance on a non-playoff team is meaningless, why are the Giants thinking of re-signing Barry Bonds despite the improvements they could make to their team without him? The playoffs exist because of baseball, it's not the other way around. Crowning a team "World Champions", having a season-ending tournament, hell, having a season at all; these are all secondary priorities of the game of baseball. The game of baseball exists first and foremost to entertain the fans (and to a certain extent the players). The idea of a playoffs, a World Series, end-of-season awards; these are all just things to make the game more fun for the fans. Can you imagine the impact a player like Ryan Howard would have had in Kansas City, in terms of putting butts in seats? You could argue that in 2005, since the Yankees have such a high attendance rate no matter what, Rodriguez would have been much MORE valuable to a team like Pittsburgh or Tampa Bay. This is a lot to think about, but my point is that if writers are going to take the criteria I've displayed above and stretch it to accomodate their personal preferences, these are things they should consider as well. The Florida Marlins were in the pennant race until mid-September, and boasted MLB's 27th-highest attendance in 2006. The Seattle Mariners posted MLB's 12th-highest figure. Using those figures you could throw actual baseball performance out the window and say that Ichiro Suzuki was a far more valuable player than Miguel Cabrera. If you're going to weigh some factors not based on performance (and NOT stipulated in the BBWAA rules), why not weigh all of them.

I would choose not to weigh those factors, which drives me hard to the conclusion that baseball's BEST player would be the MOST VALUABLE player to have on a team. Unless he is a severe clubhouse cancer that actually hurts the team's performance (and I don't think any of this year's MVP candidates come close to that), it's tough for me to come to any other answer. And even when sportswriters DO make it apparent that they are using a team's standing in their criteria, they STILL manage to fuck up just how to do that!

But you're probably sick of hearing from me. Let's here from some real-life sportswriters:

"I had an MVP vote and cast it for Ryan Howard. I just thought he meant more to his team this season than any other player in the National League this season. While Albert Pujols was extraordinary, the Cardinals kept on going when he missed time with injuries. But I thought Howard carried the Phillies as they made their late-season push that ultimately fell short, a push they couldn't possibly have made without him."
-Don Burke, Newark Star-Ledger

This is a classic example of the last thing I mentioned. If you believe that Pujols and Howard both contributed about nine wins to their respective teams, this is what would have happened without them: St. Louis would have missed the playoffs, and Philadelphia would STILL have missed the playoffs. Is a win in late-season more important? When St. Louis won 13 of 15 games in late July, Pujols OPSed about 1.5. Could they have made that push without him? When the Phillies lost 15 of 17 in June, Howard hit five home runs and knocked in 14. What was he doing differently then that wasn't "winning his team games"? NOTHING.

"But the Phillies had a better RECORD than St. Louis, so Burke is actually picking the RIGHT team's player!" Well, if having a better record is more important than making the playoffs, wouldn't being a better ballplayer also be more important?

EDIT: A lot of people are making the claim that Ryan Howard "carried the Phillies on his back" during "the stretch run". Well, after September 8, Howard hit two home runs in 21 games. Seven of those games were decided by three runs or less; five by two runs or less. The Phillies missed the playoffs by three games. Why couldn't Howard get hot at the right time? He had an *incredible* August, but it seems to me he faltered in "the stretch run".

Of course that's all bullshit and an incredible August is just as valuable as an incredible September. But if the late-season "stretch-run" carries more weight when determining MVP, why in God's name doesn't the late "stretch-run" carry more weight than the early "stretch-run"? (END EDIT.)

"I think Ryan Howard epitomizes the MVP award. He carried the Phillies on his back, put up monster numbers in the middle of a playoff race, and was a first-class citizen. He is my MVP, narrowly ahead of Albert Pujols. To me, an MVP has to come from either a playoff team or a team in playoff contention. If the Phillies weren't a factor in the race, the nod would go to Pujols, but since they stayed alive until the final weekend, the vote swings to Howard. I also believe he might be the classiest young player in the game today and should be baseball's next great role model."
-Bob Nightengale, USA Today

Let's go to the "first-class citizen" argument, which is valid, because it is a criterion. How is Howard classier than Pujols? Neither has had any *serious* allegations of steroid use, neither mouths off, both are minorities thriving in the U.S.... so what is it? "Howard might be the classiest young player in the game today and should be baseball's next great role model." If he and Pujols are equally classy, and Pujols is one year younger... never mind. Also, let's pretend for just a minute that Pujols has been putting up these kinds of numbers for five years now, whereas this was the first full season for the older "next great role model."

"I've never had an MVP vote. But if I did I'd lean toward a guy on a contending or championship team unless someone had numbers off the charts (Andre Dawson 1987, for instance)."
-Pat Borzi, New York Times

This one makes my brain hurt. First of all, the MVP is based on regular season performance, so that championship team comment strikes me as terribly odd. But after that there's a bigger problem: "unless someone had numbers off the charts."

So a player is only really valuable if he's helping a contending team... unless he's really really valuable. THEN he can be most valuable to anyone. This doesn't make any sense.

Player A OPS's .950 for a playoff team. Player B OPS's .999 for a middle-of-the-pack team. Player C OPS's 1.600 for a 68-win team. This is how Pat Borzi's ballot would look:

1. Player C
2. Player A
3. Player B

THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.

"[I] have not voted for MVP in a few years, but I always voted for people in the postseason. The award is not like the Cy Young Award for the most outstanding pitcher... It's for the most outstanding player."
-Bob Elliott, Toronto Sun

Good luck with that one. I'm not sure where to start. I don't think I'm going to bother.

"To me, the player who is judged most valuable to his team must almost out of necessity play on a team that contends for a postseason spot, unless the weight of his statistics are so overwhelming."
-Jeff Blair, Toronto Globe and Mail

This, again, is nonsensical.

"I don't have an MVP ballot but in writing about the MVP Award, I hardly ever give a first-place vote for a player who isn't in the playoffs. It would have to be an extreme case with no other standout candidates, because the word "valuable" to me connotes value to a winner.

Andre Dawson won it when the Cubs finished sixth and they would have finished sixth with an average player in that position.

In that light, Pujols beat out Howard for me. In a year when the Cardinals were savaged by pitching injuries, lineup injuries and general inconsistency, Pujols basically took them to the NL Central title. The fact that he has made himself a Gold Glove first baseman cannot be diminished either.

Howard's numbers speak for themselves and he would be the Player of the Year if such an award existed."
-Mark Whicker, Orange County Register

This is a real gem. Individually:

-"The word 'valuable' to me connotes value to a winner."

Unless you're using a different dictionary than me, I don't see it.

-"Andre Dawson won it when the Cubs finished sixth and they would have finished sixth with an average player in that position."

If St. Louis had lost a player of that caliber that season, they would have missed the playoffs. It's not Andre Dawson's fucking fault the Cubs blew ass in 1987. (By the way, Andre Dawson... other than his HR and RBI totals, where are these "incredible numbers" he put up in '87? .287/.328/.568? Dawson was 10th in the league in OPS that year.)

-"In a year when the Cardinals were savaged by pitching injuries, lineup injuries and general inconsistency, Pujols basically took them to the NL Central title."

The Cardinals had the fewest victories of any World Series team since 1973. They fell ass-backwards into the playoffs. Should THIS be a consideration if you're going to consider a playoff team? He's wrongly contradicting a wrong opinion.

-"Howard's numbers speak for themselves and he would be the Player of the Year if such an award existed."

Howard's numbers show that he did not have as good a year as Pujols. So you're wrongly wrong on this one, too. Oh, if ONLY a "Player of the Year" award existed!

Okay, there is so much in this article to rebuke that I have run out of patience. Of all 17 writers interviewed, one, one stated that it was unfair to judge a player based on the performance of his teammates. He was Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star. Maybe he knows just how valuable a great player can be to a team that has little else going for it.

I'm not saying that every person should have an equal perspective on the MVP voting. What I am saying is that if you are going to argue one way or the other, arguing that a team's performance should have an effect on MVP voting takes you down a road filled with circular logic and conflicting points. If I were starting a ballteam, I would want the best player first. He, to me, would be the most valuable. There are many different ways of determining who is the best player; THIS is a debate that is worthwhile. Not this "is he on a playoff team" crap. If you think that this "takes away from the team aspect of the game", well, I'll bet there are very few players that would rather win an MVP than a World Series. Very, very few. No kid in Texas or Japan or the Dominican Republic is bouncing a ball off the side of his house for eight hours a day dreaming of winning an MVP award. Contending teams' players are rewarded greatly by their teams' success. Individual player awards should, on a smaller scale, reward individual success.

posted by Carnival @ 11/19/2006