I think A-Rod will win fairly comfortably. A-Rod should get his share of votes like he always does. I think it'll be rare that he won't be in anyone's top 3.

On the other hand there's going to be many players getting first place votes that won't be in the top 5 on a lot of ballots.

A funny thing I read, I think in the Boston Globe, for the case against Delgado was that he had 50 less RBIs after the break than before.

I've always been a big supporter of ARod winning the MVP in past years, however this year I have a hard time backing him for the following reason:

- Texas finished in last place.
- Texas is a BIG time hitters park, although Arod's splits don't drop off a lot on the road this year (.282 hitter on the road) he still benefited from the dry thin air of Texas.
- He didn't hit .300, I know that I shouldn't look at average and that it's really OBP that I should be looking at but still, he didn't hit .300.
- He didn't crack the 1.000 OPS mark. For a hitter playing in Texas on a last place team, I think you at least have to have an OPS over 1.000 to be considered for MVP
- He wasn't the best offensive player in the AL. There were guys out there better than him this year.

If I had to vote for AL MVP, I think I would have a really tough time with it. I'd probably pick Delgado because of my bias for Jays players, however I think a case can be made for Jorge Posada.

- He wasn't the best offensive player in the AL. There were guys out there better than him this year.

True, but:

1. He plays SS
2. He plays SS at a gold glove level
3. MVP isn't most valuable offensive player

A-Rod is about 10 runs better than the rest of the AL in runs above replacement level.

If you go by Win Shares A-Rod is slightly the MVP over Delgado (by 0.3 of a Win Share)

Any reason why its not a good idea to defer to Win Shares?

Yeah, I understand all the reasons for ARod to win the award, however if a player is on a last place team, he needs to be clearly the best player. This year Arod even if he was the best player, it wasn't by much, therefore I wouldn't give it to him, especially if he didn't win it last year.

Coach is right. Any decision that the writers make will be controversial. My personal choice would be Rodriguez, but you can make cases for at least Boone, Posada and Delgado also. Much turns on the interpretation of defensive statistics, and reasonable people can certainly disagree. It is not all clear whether Boone, Posada or Rodriguez was more valuable defensively, and Delgado was the best offensive player in the league.

This is going to be very interesting. 10 huh? We should have a contest to guess who the 10 are.

Delgado, Manny Ramirez, Bill Mueller, Alex Rodriguez, Shannon Stewart, David Ortiz, Magglio Ordonez, Jorge Posada have all been talked about recently.

Ok, now I'm stuck.

Roy Halladay? Bret Boone? Nomar? I'm guessing, so I'll take Boone and Nomar to round out my 10.

We should have a contest to guess who the 10 are

Rodriguez, Delgado, Boone, Ortiz, Stewart, Garciaparra, Wells, Beltran, Posada, Ramirez

No love for Vernon Wells?

Looks like I posted the Wells comment 1 minute too late.

I can't believe anyone actually can justify choosing Stewart as MVP.

OK. Here are my guesses for those getting 1st place votes: Delgado, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Stewart, Ortiz, Ordonez, Posada, Boone, Nomar, and Hudson (Tim not Orlando, much as I think of him).

The reason that I have Tim Hudson there is Oakland did win the division, and he was arguably their best player (although you could make a case for Chavez or Tejada).

My ten 1st place votes go too:

Carlos Delgado
Alex Rodriguez
Vernon Wells
Garret Anderson
Frank Thomas
Jorge Posada
Nomar Garciapara
Manny Ramirez
Brett Boone
David Ortiz

Jorge Posada as MVP? Even as a diehard Yanks fan, I just don't get that. Of course, there was a fair amount of media coverage of Posada being a candidate, which in turn made him a candidate. This is what happened with Ortiz and Stewart, too, neither of whom should be in anyone's top 5.

I think A-Rod will win fairly comfortably. A-Rod should get his share of votes like he always does. I think it'll be rare that he won't be in anyone's top 3.

I agree this SHOULD be the case, but you will have some percentage of writers who insist that "Most Valuable" does not mean "Best" who will drop A-Rod way down the ballot, and another related group who will drop him way down the ballot because the Rangers blew chunks.

I would be shocked if A-Rod wins. Then again, I have the feeling I'm going to be shocked at whoever wins.

The 10 Guys who I think (as opposed to should) will appear in 1st place on the ballot

A-Rod
Delgado
Boone
Posada
Giambi
Soriano
Manny
Nomar
Pedro
Ortiz

With an outside shot that Tejada or Ichiro get a 1st place spot

The top 10 deserving by Win Shares

A-Rod
Delgado
Boone
Beltran
Posada
Giambi
Manny
Alfonso
V-W
Tejada

Whoops! Forgot Shannon - he isnt deserving but he'll get at least one first place vote - delete Soriano from my list and add Shannon

If you go by Win Shares A-Rod is slightly the MVP over Delgado (by 0.3 of a Win Share)

Any reason why its not a good idea to defer to Win Shares?

Isn't 0.3 of a win share pretty much insignificant? Me Grimlock hope Delgado pulls it out today.

As a final thought, I think A-Rod and Delgado are benefitted by the fact that the League's Top 4 Players didn't make the playoffs...Because of this the voters who vote on the best overall player will push a candidate such as Posada about as far down the ballot as those who define valuable as "effect on a playoff team" will push someone like A-Rod down the ballot

The advantage of A-Rod and Delgado is that there are fewer choices for those who vote on best overall player because it is an objective judgment (although there are at least 4 top non-playoff hitters, I imagine the lions share of 1st and 2nd place votes from these writers will go to A-Rod or Delgado), whereas the writers who emphasise the word 'valuable' could conceivably vote for about 15 different players

If we assume that there are roughly the same number of voters in each camp, I imagine either A-Rod or Delgado will win the award

Jorge Posada ranked 3rd in the Baseball Primer poll, appearing on all 9 ballots, and ranking no worse than 7th on any: http://www.baseballprimer.com/articles/danwerr_2003-11-09_0.shtml. He was one of the 10 best hitters in the league, and he is at least a decent defensive catcher. This year that makes ya a contender.

Does anyone know who the two Toronto BBWAA voters are, and whether or not they've alluded to their choices for MVP. (I wouldn't be surprised if Halladay receives at least one first place T.O. vote, BTW)

Geoff Baker has a good review of the likeliest candidates in today's Star. With ten guys getting first-place ballots, I have a bad feeling we might see a plurality vote going to an Ortiz or even a Stewart this year. I'd cast my vote for A-Rod over Carlos, mostly because I lean towards value in the league context, not the team context. It'll be a talked-about vote no matter what.

Here's some more AL MVP >banter, courtesy of Mike Celizik, MSNBC.

Delgado, A-rod, Boone, Ichiro, manny, wells, shannon stewart, posada, foulke, nomar.

...the dry thin air of Texas.

Ummm, have you ever visited Texas?

I can't believe I just read all the messages on this board because it occurred to be that I hate this award, it isn't defined who and why they are most valuable, so there is great debate and lots of interpretation. And this is what is so bothersome. Baseball is a objectively defined sport, whoever gets the most runs wins, and the most wins means that you are the best. Yet when we evaluate players who are the best, we use subjective means, that is very confusing, we might as well be watching the most subjective of sports, figure skating... Sorry for the mindless drivel, I must be low on caffeine.

A-Rod wins, Delgado second

Source: Some guy on Primer, take it for what it's worth.

I agree with Young. I mean personally I think Arod is the best player based on postion, stats etc. But is he most valuable to his team?? Texas was last place. There should be 2 awards a player of the year based on numbers maybe voted on by peer and the most valuable player. I dont think there will ever be an exact criteria for it though.

It's A-Rod.

A-Rod by 32 points over Delgado. Posada third, Stewart 4th, and (sorry, Mr. Gammons!) Ortiz 5th.

I can't argue with that. They should have given the Aaron award to Delgado though (he was slightly better Offensively).

Arod was only the 5th player to win the award from a non winning team.

Shannon Stewart fourth. Ugh.

I agree with Kristian. I think along with the Cy Young, ROY , and MVP awards MLB needs to sanction a Lester B. Pearson style award where the players vote. It would simply have to be defined as the "Best" player; they can include pitchers. This might get us some old-school style winners like Ichiro (because he does all the 'little things'), but at least there's no arguments about "value".

According to this ESPN article, VDub received a first-place vote. I'm happy for him, though I don't think he was better than all other contenders for the award. Then again, Stewart and Ortiz got first-place votes too.

A-Rod was the only player to be picked on every ballot!!! I.e. some moron chose to include Rodriguez in his/her Top10, but not Carlos! Let me guess, that Moron also holds a Texas Rangers press pass!

I realize the Aaron award is out there, but MLB just isn't behind that like they are the ROY, Cy Young, and MVP. Call it the MOP (O is for outstanding) and give it the hype of the other three. The players don't need to vote for it, but that is an easy way to separate it from the MVP.

http://economics.about.com
This is going to sound like trolling, but I'm serious.

A-Rod got paid $20 million last year. He gave probably around $20 million in performance. Where's the value in that?

Would you rather have A-Rod's 2003 at his 2003 salary or VW's 2003 at VW's 2003 salary? I'd say the latter is far more valuable.

Mike

No one got all 10 of the 1st place vote getters: A-rod, Delgado, Posada, Ortiz, Stewart, Manny, Nomar, Giambi, Vernon Wells and Tejada. Mind you the odds of getting all of those right was only slightly better than the chances of winning 6/49.

Last year Arod had the best numbers arguably but Tejada led the A's on that 20 game winning streak. Arod put up his numbers on a last place team both years and I think that counts against him for MVP not the player of the year. Only 5 winners on non winning teams shows that the criteria for the writers however flawed it maybe usually takes into account the finish of your team. If Texas didnt have Arod you could argue they could use that 25 million to be better and fill more holes after all on this site people say that all the time about the Jays not resigning Escobar to use the money elsewhere to improve overall. To me MVP has to come from a winning or at least contending team unless the numbers are absolutely unreal, ie Arod broke Bonds record or won the triple crown.

Just my opinion

Baseball is a objectively defined sport

Nah. Baseball is a talkin' sport.

Made for arguments like these, every ... single ... year.

Seriously. If baseball awards were "objectively defined," where'd be the fun in that?

It almost makes me wish Stewart and Ortiz had pulled a Stargell/Hernandez and tied for MVP honors. That might've spurred some talk.

That's amazing, Steve Z. I expected (based on The Jays better finish, the buzz surrounding them after May, attention garnered by his teammates HLH and V-W, the RBIs, and the 4 HR game) Delgado would be the only guy on every ballot, and run off with the award. I also thought, there could be one writer leaving A-Rod off the ballot as a slap to the SABR community who have been campaigning for an A-Rod win for what seems like years. Crazier things have happened (I don't think Matsui should have been AL ROY, but leaving him off of the ballot was ridiculous). Frankly, my August pick, Bret Boone, went into a terrible September swoon and I couldn't decide between Delgado and A-Rod.

I correct that, there were TWO Morons who left Carlos off their ballots!

Let me guess, that Moron also holds a Texas Rangers press pass!

Dallas-Fort Worth writers' opinions of A-Rod deserving the MVP were generally unfavorable. One hammerhead fawned on Stewart. Don't know how they actually voted, though.

How about the guy that gave Jeter a 2nd place vote.

Especially funny since the Yanks got off to a historic start with him on the injured list.

http://economics.about.com
How about the guy that gave Jeter a 2nd place vote.

Especially funny since the Yanks got off to a historic start with him on the injured list.

I'm surprised Ken Huckaby didn't get any votes from Boston writers.

Mike

...Jeter got a second place vote? ... Pedro, Loaizia, Foulke, and Rivera all got votes ahea dof HLH? ... Shannon Stewart was better than V-Dub?

Also interesting that Halladay runs away with the Cy Young, but gets no top 10 votes, while 4 other pitchers do.

I guess Mike and Pistol beat me to the punch on the Jeter observation.
"Huckaby" and "MVP" ... not too often you'll hear those in the same sentence... Maybe he was good in Little League.

The 5th place finisher was only on 15 ballots.

Has there been a more scattered vote in recent times?

Well, I got ya on the HLH observation, Pistol :-)

I'm going to assume that MVP voting was influenced by position here since Delgado had better overall numbers, a team with a better record and A-Rod also had a very good offensive team around him (by no means was he a one man wrecking crew). But if you're going to recognize a player for his defensive contribution aren't there Gold Gloves for that?

I could accept someone like Manny R. or Garciaparra winning because the Bosox made the playoffs, but this is a joke. And who are the 3 dolts voting for Shannon Stewart? Laughable. David Ortiz over his teammates? Equally laughable. Obviously any chimp can vote.

But if you're going to recognize a player for his defensive contribution aren't there Gold Gloves for that?

If you're going to recognize only offensive contributions aren't there Silver Sluggers for that?

FWIW, the beat writer for the Dallas Morning News gave A-Rod a 4th place vote. His first-place vote went to... David Ortiz.

Don't know how T.R. Sullivan of the Ft Worth Star Telegram voted.

Kudos to The WorldWideLeader's Page 2 story on the most controversial MVP votes of all time.

Not for the content, but for the flexibility. I opened it early this morning but never read it. I just went back to it over lunch and found a new lede: "Now that we know who the American League MVP is ..."

Very few online publications would take the time and care to update a single paragraph like that.

That's true, but I don't like factoring in position because it automatically puts other players at a disadvantage regardless of how well they field their position.

Besides, I don't see how anyone can argue that A-Rod deserves MVP because his defensive contribution enabled them to not finish horribly last, just last. Which is what the argument comes down to, and which is why his winning is asinine.

http://economics.about.com
By that logic, Lurker, you can't give the award to a player on a team that finished in first by a mile, because the team still would have finished in first anyway.

So you'd want to give it to a team that won the division, and by less than 3 or 4 games. Seems kind of limiting to me.

Mike

Argh... maybe I mis-represented myself before.
Objectively defined...
What I meant is that I can understand runs and wins, they are clear cut and defined, you have to cross the plate to get runs and you have to have more runs than your opponent to win. And you have to have the most wins to be the division winner, and the like...
Maybe I'm getting confused with it all, I can understand wins and runs, but I really have no clue what the awards are for really. If they are all for talking, then I guess we have achieved its goal, because the MVP debate creates such a fuss every year. And now that I think about it, yes, the award(s) are just a sort of bragging rights. We have the reigning MVP on our team! Be scared! Pitch around him for all that matters!

Besides, I don't see how anyone can argue that A-Rod deserves MVP because his defensive contribution enabled them to not finish horribly last, just last. Which is what the argument comes down to, and which is why his winning is asinine.

Here's how I see it. The best player is the most valuable player. A player should not be penalized or rewarded based on how much talent their teammates have.

I'd elaborate but no one ever changes their position in these types of discussions.

I'm out here in the Bay Area on business, and the A's fans are livid that Giambi got a first-place vote.

I completely agree. A first-place vote? On what planet was Mr. 226/401/498 After The All-Star Break the Most Valuable Player?

Fine, he had 20 more walks than Carlos. But he was 13 points lower in OBP, 66 points lower in SLG, 52 points lower in BA, and scored 20 fewer runs.

(I'm not even mentioning the 38 fewer RBI, despite having 198 AB+BB with runners in scoring position -- just eight fewer AB+BB than Carlos.)

Giambi was less durable than Carlos, a defensive liability, and clearly not the most valuable player on his own team -- Posada nearly matched his OPS while catching.

First place. Sheesh!

Mike: My main problem with this vote is that A-Rod had a very good offensive team around him, he surely didn't carry his team with his bat.

So by that logic, you have A-Rod's defense making (assumably) the difference between a really crappy team and a crappy team. That just doesn't hold water for me if we're talking MVP, sorry..at least there's SOMETHING to point to (a winning record) with other guys that indicates their possible impact and justification for voting for them.

It's not a perfect science obviously but one has to use some common sense. Most valuable translates to winning for me, so no player on a last place team would have a chance at MVP in my world. Unless that player absolutely dwarfed every other player statistically (which A-Rod did not do this year).

One thing I'm stumped about is why voters don't understand about pressure and how being on a bad team affects a players numbers. Texas was out of the race pretty early in the season so there's no pressure on arod to perform and carry his team into the playoffs. this also affects delgado but not as much as arod cause we were in it into july. Also if you're playing texas and winning (which happened a lot) by a wide margin how would you pitch to arod? you'd pitch to him right, cause you're already winning by 5 or 6 runs. I just think the number of pressure AB should play a part in how you interpret the stats. I guess i can't ask so much of guys when stewart and ortiz get 7 first place votes. i think (hope) that the parody in the voting makes bud do something, we know bud is likely so do something quick and irrational when controversy strikes (this time it counts!)

The confusing thing to me (other than the whole Shannon Stewart business, which we all knew was coming) is how anyone can vote for David Ortiz ahead of Manny Ramirez.

Same team. Same defensive value (read: none). Manny plays more and hits more, yet Ortiz is more valuable?

If you look at the history of the MVP voting, it seems that 3 factors are taken into account: offensive performance, defensive performance and contributions to a winning team (both tangible and intangible). The impact of the third factor in voter's minds is obviously quite significant. The 1st place votes for Stewart and Ortiz this year are an indication of this.

To see it more clearly, go back to 1967 (the first year I followed baseball). Orlando Cepeda (.325/.399/.524 in 625 PAs) and Roberto Clemente (.357/.400/.554 in 626 PAs) were the only real contenders in the NL. Cepeda was an enthusiastic leader of the pennant-winning Cardinals and played first-base well enough but he wasn't Eddie Murray out there. Clemente's Pirates finished at .500, but Roberto was Roberto in the OF, the best defensive rightfielder of all time.
Cepeda was the unanimous MVP selection.

As it was, none of the winning teams had a defined "best player". Posada was really the closest, but his offensive performance was a fair bit behind Rodriguez'. I am quite sure that if Delgado had played on a team that made it to the playoffs, the result would have been different, especially in light of Delgado's Cepeda-like personality.

My main problem with this vote is that A-Rod had a very good offensive team around him, he surely didn't carry his team with his bat.

Lurker...why don't you hold Derek Jeter to the same standard? If you'll recall, your position a few days aho was that despite the strength of the team around him, it was Jeter who was the main reason the Yankees won all those championships. I don't mean to debate that discussion again, because you made it clear you're going on gut alone, but I fail to see how you can zero in on some players and label them as key cogs and then wave away that possibility for ARod.

I seem to remember Texas getting somewhat hot early on, hovering around .500. I think they wont 7 straight at one point. Where was A-Rod? Nowhere. Come August, when Texas is LONG GONE, A-Rod has an insane month when it doesn't even matter. So don't talk about pressure.

I would have voted for A-Rod last year, and 1996 for sure. This year I'm starting to think Delgado vs. Posada would have been my debate for the 1-2 spots with A-Rod a close third (I realize this is changing my position form earlier, but I've been reading about this all day)

The way I view it is, if you had a team of replacement-level players, how much better would that team be if you substituted each MVP candidate for the respective replacement-level player on that team.

In that context, players like ARod and Delgado would affect such a team more than Stewart or Ortiz. And I certainly think that Delgado's effect would be greater than Giambi's, or Ramirez' more than Stewart's.

Of course, this is my interpretation of how to select an MVP. No more justified than any other...

I just think the number of pressure AB should play a part in how you interpret the stats.

If this is legitimate, and I'm not saying that it is or isn't because I don't know myself, how do you figure out just how much influence it should have on the stats? Do you discount it a bit? A lot? Discount the whole season? I think it's too hard to try and factor this into a definition of 'MVP' that is already too vague and confusing.

Doesn't anyone think there's a bit of Susan Lucci in all of this? He doesn't necessarily deserve it this year but no one was a stand out and he had all those great years before this one...

It's not a legitimate reason for this happening but might be a reason nonetheless.

So don't talk about pressure.

Players on contending teams play under pressure, but someone who has to constantly live up to a $252 million contract doesn't? ARod has more pressure on him from the media and fans than any other player, with the possible exception of Bonds.

Completely OT:
I was looking over ESPN for old trade rumours and found this one especially interesting:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2000/0624/601471.html
Imagine the Cubbies with Prior, Wood and HLH........And the Jays trading Sosa one year later because he's too damn expensive.

Spicol: I never said Jeter was the main reason the Yankees won, but I do think he made a major contribution. I'd rather have him as my SS because he brings things to his team that don't show up in his personal stats. It's the smell of a winner..something I don't smell on A-Rod when I watch him.

I thought jfree brought up a very legitimate point about pressure situations being accounted for...I think it should merit consideration (it is among those who factor team records in their vote). Not to discount A-Rod's accomplishments but you're going to see more fat pitches when you're losing (especially with a relatively stacked lineup around you) than you will when you're consistently in ballgames.

http://economics.about.com
I thought jfree brought up a very legitimate point about pressure situations being accounted for...I think it should merit consideration (it is among those who factor team records in their vote). Not to discount A-Rod's accomplishments but you're going to see more fat pitches when you're losing (especially with a relatively stacked lineup around you) than you will when you're consistently in ballgames.

You're going to see a lot more fat pitches when you're winning by a bunch too.

I'd bet Texas was in a lot more close games than the Red Sox this year.

Mike

Mike,

Production for dollar has never been used as the basis for MVP voting - I'll go so far as to say it has been an almost total non-factor. Based on normative grounds, A-Rod's salary is irrelevant.

One may think of it this way. Some may refer to a doctor as a valuable member to society because of the value of his/her work to other people. Most would agree that a doctor that maintains the health of his/her patient is more valuable to society than a bank teller, even though the doctor (most likely) earns a much higher salary.

Salary is an indication of the perceived value of a player by a given party at a specific time. The MVP award is supposed to be about actual value on the ballfield, whether that be measured in wins or pennants or even entertainment value (which of the three or combination thereof is/are the best criteria(on) is a topic for another day)

So when are the Batter's Box awards being announced?

One thing to add to all the discussion of who deserved to win: A-Rod didn't win the MVP so much as he backed into it. He received the barest plurality of 1st-place votes. 79% of the voters believed that someone else deserved the MVP. But, almost all of the them believed he was in the top four, whereas opinion was much more divided about most of the other candidates. Witness David Ortiz: four voters considered him the MVP but fourteen others didn't consider him to be among the top ten.

Delgado should be #1a instead of #2 in the voting, and maybe Posada should be #1b (though it won't be remembered that way). Were Posada or Delgado more deserving? Maybe, but at least Rodriguez isn't a bad choice. Imagine Stewart or Ortiz winning instead.

Were Posada or Delgado more deserving?

Nice grammar, Scott. Yeesh.

"I'd bet Texas was in a lot more close games than the Red Sox this year."

Mike: Texas won 12 games by 6+ runs and lost 34 by 6+ runs.
Total = 46 games with a 6R +/-

Boston won 10 games by 6+ runs and lost 26
Total = 36

One more note on the importance (at least in MVP voters' minds) of enthusiastic contribution to a pennant winner. Frankie Frisch won the 1931 NL MVP race. He was certainly not one of the top 10 offensive players in the league that year. There were Hall of Famers Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Paul Waner...having typically good years, but Frisch was the enthusiastic leader of the pennant-winning Cardinals, and like Cepeda 36 years later, he walked away with the hardware.

I guess that the "importance of intangibles" theory is deeply rooted in baseball lore.

I didn't think Delgado would place that high so good for him. How anyone could leave him off their ballots entirely is a mystery to me and the reason I will never understand or care about the MVP voting. It might have been nice for potential trade value for him to get the award but I wouldn't have put him 1st so I can't much complain.

I never said Jeter was the main reason the Yankees won, but I do think he made a major contribution. I'd rather have him as my SS because he brings things to his team that don't show up in his personal stats. It's the smell of a winner..something I don't smell on A-Rod when I watch him.

You wouldn't know a winner if it smacked you across the face with a two-by-four and danced lewdly over your prone and lifeless body.

Seriously... I respect your right to have an opinion, Lurker. A-Rod isn't to everyone's taste, and Jeter is a fine player. But when others bring evidence to the table, and you rely on your olfactory glands as a response, you can't expect anything other than derision.

I've never been angry at the voting before, especially not when the right guy wins, the right guy comes second, and a very good guy comes third.

But the support for Ortiz and Stewart convinces me that the BBWAA members do not take this vote at all seriously. That pisses me off... a lot of people spend a lot of time being very careful about their votes in the Internet Baseball Awards, or their mock votes, and half of these guys (at a minimum) couldn't be arsed to spend five minutes thinking about the real ones.

Shannon Stewart is a LEADOFF MAN who scored 90 runs this year and stole 4 bases in 10 tries. He played a whopping 136 games. The only offensive categories he cracked the top 10 were batting average (10th) and doubles (7th). He's a bad defensive left fielder,

David Ortiz is a *DH* who played 128 games this year and scored the grand total of 79 runs. He couldn't even crack the top 10 in RBI.

*21* guys had Stewart on their ballots; 12 in the top 5. It would take a hell of an arguemnt to convince me he was one of the 30 best players in the league.

One more note on the importance (at least in MVP voters' minds) of enthusiastic contribution to a pennant winner. Frankie Frisch won the 1931 NL MVP race. He was certainly not one of the top 10 offensive players in the league that year. There were Hall of Famers Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Paul Waner...having typically good years, but Frisch was the enthusiastic leader of the pennant-winning Cardinals, and like Cepeda 36 years later, he walked away with the hardware.

Frisch in '31 is an interesting case. (We should remember that in '31 stats beyond batting average and a couple of other categories were not widely available... the game was less statistically sophisticated as a whole and there is, I think, more room for latitude). There had not been an award in 1930; Frisch had had a superb year in 1930, which though not the best in baseball had been one of the best. I think he picked up votes from that.

His '31 was more pedestrian, and he only played 131 games, but the best Cardinal was Chick Hafey who played even less than Frisch and didn't play an important defensive position (Win Shares has Hafey with 25 WS, Frisch and Bill Hallahan 21 each). Frisch was a very good defender at second, and the Cards despite a mediocre staff overall (an aging Burleigh Grimes was still a good pitcher, none of the others was a top guy) allowed very few runs.

Every other team, even basement-dwellers Cincy (Tony Cuccinello) had a player with more WS than Frankie Frisch. So this wasn't a good selection; but it was a bit better, and more understandable, than the raw 1931 stats would tell you.

Voting in 1931 was badly split; Chuck Klein and Bill Terry got lots of support, but not quite enough.

Craig: Better stats are evidence of ability to play big and win in big games? Robert Durst had a better case. He won though! :)

The difference between you and me is that without being able to actually prove anything, I accept the fact I may be wrong and you may be right. That's respect. Disagree all you want but don't think you've proved your case any more than I have mine.

Lurker, I accept the fact that I may be wrong. I'm saying that what you are persenting is not evidence, and is absolutely no reason to take you seriously.

2003, since that's most relevant to the MVP discussion.

These are "clutch" situations. I picked the three most relevant (close and late are clutch in a game context, while RISP with 2 out and leading off are "clutch" in the context of scoring runs... these PAs have a disporportionate value in terms of run creation). I think that of these three, "close and late" are really the situation that is the most "clutch" as we generally think of it. It looks for who is producing, and who is disappearing, when the game is on the line.

All stats are OBP/SLG/OPS, R/RBI, PA (AB+BB+HBP, since PA aren't avaialble for these splits)

"Close and Late" (results in the 7th inning or later with the batting team either ahead by one run, tied or with the potential tying run at least on deck.)

Alex Rodriguez
400/712/1112, 17R/23RBI, 90 PA

Derek Jeter
152/310/261, 8R/3RBI, 57PA

Runners In Scoring Position, 2 out

Alex Rodriguez
435/520/955, 25R/23RBI, 62 PA

Derek Jeter
463/455/918, 24R/20RBI, 54 PA

Leading Off

Alex Rodriguez
435/738/1173, 37R/11RBI, 124 PA

Derek Jeter
375/483/858, 38R/3RBI, 128 PA

For more on Derek Jeter's clutch abilities, I recommend Aaron Gleeman's recent pieces analyzing Jeter's clutch performance over the last several years. Verdict : not good. Jeter is not a good peformer in clutch situations. Maybe it's just luck and bounces; maybe he's a choker. I can't rightly say... though I suspect it's the former. Maybe with a bit of the latter.

(Of course, in terms of fielding (in the clutch or at any other time) there is no comparison between the two, since Jeter struggles with range at shortstop and is error-prone, while A-Rod is not. At another position, of course, Jeter might well be a significant defensive asset; he has to play shortstop for the Yankees because they have no one else who is adequate).

Sorry, mistake on Jeter's numbers in close and late situations, that should read 310/261/571, not 152/310/261.

But the support for Ortiz and Stewart convinces me that the BBWAA members do not take this vote at all seriously. That pisses me off...

I disagree. I think everyone does take the voting seriously, or at least believes in how they vote (in the cases where they personally modify the voting criteria).

Not sure if he has a vote (I don't think he does), but I know Jayson Stark thought about AL MVP a lot and still believes Stewart is the MVP because when Stewart was traded coincided with the Twins turnaround.

And that's the bothersome thing to me. They do believe in positions that I think are highly irrational.

One more data point, because I made Jeter look way too bad with that "close and late" comparison. Close and late, 2001-2003:

A-Rod 392/568/960, 52R/65RBI, 313PA

Jeter 340/341/681, 36R/28RBI, 266PA

I mean, Jeter performs poorly in pressure situations, but not nearly as poorly as 2003 alone would indicate.

I know Jayson Stark thought about AL MVP a lot and still believes Stewart is the MVP because when Stewart was traded coincided with the Twins turnaround.

Well, he *talked* a lot about it. That doesn't mean he thought about it. If he had, he would have asked himself, "can I point to one thing that Shannon Stewart did that helped turn the Twins around?" because that's a painfully freakin' obvious question to ask yourself if you're thinking about an issue, instead of just picking an outlandish position and trying to defend it. And if he had thought of one, he would have offered one. He never did.

I mean, Mike Moffatt thought that Bill Mueller was the MVP, at least for a while. I think that's totally nuts, almost as nuts as Stewart is, but talking to Mike it was obvious that he put a great deal of thought into what he was saying, and just had what I consider a pecuilar view about "value" in this context. That's OK in my book.

But no one ever offered a rational explanation for picking Stewart, other than "they started to win around the time he arrived", which frankly is closer to astrology than it is to analysis.

What's more, if it is analysis, it's bloody sloppy analysis because they got it wrong. The transactions that were closest in time to Minnesota's turning it around were the recall of Todd Sears from Rochester, and Jacque Jones coming off the DL. The Jones case is particularly interesting; when Jones was on the DL the Twins were 1-12, and the instant he came back they went on a long winning streak. On the "straw that stirs the drink" theory, there is twice as much reason to suspect that Jacque Jones is the MVP than there is for Shannon Stewart.

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I mean, Mike Moffatt thought that Bill Mueller was the MVP, at least for a while. I think that's totally nuts, almost as nuts as Stewart is, but talking to Mike it was obvious that he put a great deal of thought into what he was saying, and just had what I consider a pecuilar view about "value" in this context.

I still think that way.

I know that salary is rarely used by MVP voters. Some voters must be using it, though. That's the only possible way Ortiz over Manny makes any sense. Unless writers are using poison monkeys to make their votes.

Reading the criteria, though, I think it should be. It's like trying to value an option without considering the price of the underlying stock. From a financial standpoint, it doesn't make much sense. I also work in a business school, though, so I'm nicely sheltered from what you humans call reality.

Cheers,

Mike

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Or let's put it this way:

The average team spends, what, $80 million a year?

If you started an expansion team with a budget of $80 million, would you choose A-Rod to be on your team? I don't think I would. How can a player be the most valuable if you wouldn't select him to be on your team. I'd probably take Berroa at 300K.

If I could only keep the players for 1 year and I knew they'd perform at exactly at their 2003 level, I think Mueller would be my first overall pick out of a pool of AL players. Vernon Wells and Roy Halladay would be great choices as well.

Cheers,

Mike

To me until the last month Brett Boone was the MVP. Great numbers at 2nd base on a winning team. Minnesota did get hot after acquiring Shannon but in that division with their talent they were, or at least should have made a run at some point. You could argue that the Twins got hot when they put Santana in their starting rotation as well. Is he the MVP? As for Ortiz obviously the guys on his team appreciated what he brought to the table but a DH versus Nomar whose numbers were better and he played short every day. Posada, Delgado,Arod,Nomar, and Beltran were the top candiates in my opinion.No one has really aruged for Beltran this year which is suprising considering what he brings to the table.

Again, I think the Stewart/Ortiz votes are a product of media self-fulfilling prophecies.

Peter Gammons loves David Ortiz? Jayson Stark loves Shannon Stewart? That stirs up reaction and discussion and gets other writers to include them in the summaries? That leads to their names in the minds of voters who put them on ballots.

If next year the Jays contend and make a deadline acquisition of, say, Royce Clayton, and the Royce-man somehow hits .393 in August and September, he will be largely ignored ... unless Tim Kurkjian or someone starts hootin' and hollerin' about his MVP worthiness, which will get picked up and reacted to and ... and ... he will end up on ballots.

And if you think the idea of MVP candidate Royce Clayton is either silly or chilling or both, how many of you thought "Shannon Stewart, MVP candidate" before Stark and Gammons and all those guys started hootin' and hollerin'?

Royce Clayton is mentioned as an example only. He is not meant to be confused with an actual MVP candidate, or actual major league shortstop for that matter. No wagering, please.

Mick makes a great point. Since reading the comments on this site it has really enlightened me to what is real and measureable in the form of stats vs the character or "he brings alot to the clubhouse" type statements that so many reporters make. Ortiz brought alot to Boston but he is no Nomar, Manny, or even Trot Nixon in stats. What about Varitek, catching every day. Based on stats Arod is the best player but to me MVP in every sport has always been most valuable to his team mainly by measureable stats and other qualities on a winning club.

What these results demonstrate is that the members of the BBWAA are not all voting on the same thing. If you believe that "valuable" means "provided great, quantifiable value to his team," that's one thing; but if you believe that it means "most value provided overall in the entire league," that's totally another. It's possible, I guess, to vote for David Ortiz if you subscribe to the first definition; it's not possible to vote for him if you subscribe to the second. The BBWAA has a serious problem: its members are casting votes without any agreement on what they're talking about.

If you were holding a referendum on the legal status of marijuana, and half the voters thought the question was about simple decriminalization, and the other half thought it was full-scale legalization, your results would be meaningless and the whole purpose of the vote would be defeated. The BBWAA may enjoy this ambiguity and the arguments it provokes, but they have got to resolve it, because they're allowing the legitimacy of their award to erode. They need to clearly define their award criteria so that everyone understands what "valuable" means. Pick one definition or the other, or a third; doesn't matter. But pick one. If that means previous MVP results wouldn't be consistent with results going forward, big deal: it's more important to be right than to be consistent.

What the Jeter-voter, the guy who omitted Delgado, and those who ranked Stewart any higher than 10th also demonstrate is that there are voters who either don't take this very seriously, as Craig says, or are so misinformed as to be fairly called incompetent. But you'll find these people in every electoral base; hell, every so often they'll actually be in sufficient numbers that you end up with a Governor Schwarzeneggar. But to my mind, these clear incompetents are a much less serious problem than the fact that not everyone is voting for the same thing.

or are so misinformed as to be fairly called incompetent.

Jordan, I think you are being charitable here by not coming out and flatly stating this to be the case. The AL contingent of the BBWAA have proven themselves to be totally out to lunch, year after year, with their continually nonsensical MVP voting.

They stumbled into getting this year's selection right, but there was more butchery than reasonable thereafter. Shannon Stewart? David Ortiz? Puh-lease. Is Stewart even a top 50 player? Top 75?

And what's really scary about this fraternity of dufuses, is that Gammons and Stark are not fringe members with fringe thoughts, they're evidently the oracles from whom the others seek guidance.

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Apparently Delgado is none too happy. Check out "Delgado: Don't understand who they vote for". Check out the end of the article:

---
Delgado got two eighth-place votes and was left off the ballot by Joe Cowley of the Daily Southtown in Chicago. Cowley also left off Toronto center fielder Vernon Wells, while including Esteban Loaiza and Frank Thomas of the White Sox.

"I don't understand who they vote for," Delgado said. "What team you are watching?"

When told that he sounded bitter, Delgado said: "Bitter? Not at all. Must be the connection."

"When you been around a little bit, you understand how it works. Nothing in this game surprises me. I take it with a grain of salt. I'm not jumping for joy."
---

Can someone remind me why writers get to vote and fans don't?

Mike

Esteban Loaiza for MVP?? The 2 biggest starts of the year and he loses them and essentially the CY Young yet the "Homer" thinks he is the MVP of the league. I dont blame Delgado for being upset it would be different if he lost yet was on all the ballots which he deserves to be. No way he was the 8th best player this year if you are looking at pure stats.

Is that the Joe Cowley?

Seriously, how do you simply ignore Delgado and Wells? The Jays and ChiSox finished with identical records, so he can't use the "contention" excuse. Carlos had a better season than Thomas in every single category, from traditional to sabrmetric. That hometown ballot should be grounds for Cowley's explusion from the BBWAA.

Mike,

I think you are confusing valuable with overvalued/undervalued.

A-Rod may be overvalued by the marketplace in comparison to Bill Mueller but he is still more valuable on the field - he can do more things to help his team win. The question of whether those contributions are worth the price for his services is a different one.

What we have here is a disparity between Bill Mueller's intrinsic value and his market value. He is therefore undervalued by the marketplace and is a wise investment. A-Rod is perhaps slightly overvalued by the market place and may be a bad investment at that price. BUT HE IS STILL MORE INTRINSICALLY VALUABLE than Bill Mueller.

The same thing occurs in stocks. Suppose I decide that Stock A is slightly more valuable (intrinsically) than Stock B, but the current market price implies that Stock A is 3 times the value of Stock B. From the point of view of purchasing stocks, Stock B is a wiser investment, because it is undervalued in comparison to Stock B.

The more I read, the more I think Carlos Delgado should have won the MVP, without much competition. Maybe I'm an easily swayed youth, but in a matter of hours he's gone from number 3-4 (behind Posada, A-Rod and maaaybe Bret Boone) on my ballot to no. 1.

Think Ortiz and Stewart are strange picks? I just glanced at the '92 AL vote and Jack Morris and his 4.04 ERA finished ahead of Roger Clemens and his sub 3 ERA . And a guy pitches 80 Innings and is the most valuable player? No matter how dominant Eck was, I find that hard to fathom.

...and I was looking at one random voting year. I bet there's a lot of strange picks out there, especially if you are loooking at everyone who got a vote like we have been.

I bet there's a lot of strange picks out there

How about 1996 NL Cy Young John Smoltz: 24-8, 2.94, 254IP getting all but 2 first place votes over Kevin Brown: 17-11, 1.89, 233IP

lol, Eck had an ERA+ of 606 in 1990. That's insane.
That's why it's so hard to rate great relievers. It's almost impossible to compare their stats with that of a starter

And we think Gagne is dominant. He is merely 235 % (ERA+ of 335) better than average. That's nothin...

Robert, I hate to speak for Mike, but what he is saying is not that Mueller is undervalued, but that he delivered the most net value. In other words, while he may or may not have the amount of gross value of say, an A-Rod, he consumes fewer of the team's resources - and therefore provides them with more net value.

A-Rod delivers more gross value than Bill Mueller, or "intrinsic value" as you would put it. But in terms of net value, he isn't (pardon the pun) in the same ballpark.

As a business analysis, it's dandy. Since I am not interested in baseball as a business (I'm interested in baseball as a sport, and as a business a distant second) it leaves me rather cold as a way of determining an MVP. But to each his own!

I agree that Mike is looking at net value. He's entitled to view the MVP as a contest of net value, but I don't see any reason to agree with him on that.

"But the support for Ortiz and Stewart convinces me that the BBWAA members do not take this vote at all seriously. That pisses me off... a lot of people spend a lot of time being very careful about their votes in the Internet Baseball Awards, or their mock votes, and half of these guys (at a minimum) couldn't be arsed to spend five minutes thinking about the real ones."

How arrogant. This is completely unfair. I mean it's not like the people who you are referring to rewrote the criteria and decided pitchers aren't eligible for the MVP, or that relievers aren't eligible for the Cy, or that Japanese players aren't eligible for the rookie of the year. These guys merely have a different definition of valuable. Their view is probably not the best view of what's valuable, but it's unfair to suggest that their view of what is most valuable is wrong, and it is especially unfair to suggest that they don't take it seriously. Gammons and Stark, right or wrong, aren't complete idiots, and they definitely put a lot of thought into their choices for MVP. I don't agree with them either, but I have more respect for the opinions of others.

"By that logic, Lurker, you can't give the award to a player on a team that finished in first by a mile, because the team still would have finished in first anyway.

So you'd want to give it to a team that won the division, and by less than 3 or 4 games. Seems kind of limiting to me."

That's not necessarily true. If a team misses the playoffs with an MVP, it would've missed the playoffs without him, end of story. However if a team finishes in first by a mile, then they are likely a top contender to win the world series. To me this player has taken this team from being a fringe playoff team, to a likely world series champion. Obviously, that doesn't guarantee that the team will win the world series. Upsets in a best of seven are very common. And I know that the teams are all basically on equal footing when they get to the playoffs, but the voting is done before the playoffs so the best we can do is look at which team is the most likely to go the furthest. Therefore, I think it is kind of a big deal for a player to make the difference between merely making the playoffs and being the best team in baseball. I'm not saying I would use the playoffs criteria very strictly. This year, for instance, I would have voted for a player that missed the playoffs, probably Delgado, but I don't think it's worth nothing that a player was on a playoff team.

How arrogant. This is completely unfair.

Please, Peteski, explain to us how anybody could choose Shannon Stewart. It is not simply a varying definition of 'value'. There is no possible interpretation of the word value that suggests Shannon Stewart for MVP.

There is no possible interpretation of the word value that suggests Shannon Stewart for MVP.

Sure there is. The Twins were faltering. Then they acquired Shannon. Then the Twins started winning. The only different piece of the roster puzzle was Stewart. Therefore, Shannon gets all the credit.

(Let me add here that I don't think Shannon should have received ANY votes, let alone 21.)

The problem is that giving Stewart credit for the Twins' turn around is like saying it was the last drink that made me throw up. I shouldn't ignore the other 24 players (or the other 15 drinks, for those who need closure to my analogy) but that's exactly what I'm doing when I give the 25th too much credit. He may have been the a complementary piece that resulted in the whole being better, but he didn't carry the team. It's a faulty interpretation in my mind but certainly one within the rules. I think Jordan said it best: The BBWAA has a serious problem: its members are casting votes without any agreement on what they're talking about.

This is absurd. The Twins started winning in the second half because of a weaker schedule, and a half-run drop in team ERA. Regardless of anyone's definition of "value," this can not have a single frigging thing to do with Shannon Stewart.

Sheesh.

I like Shannon Stewart; he was one of my favorite players here. But it's just ludicrous to suggest he's a in anyway a reasonable candidate for mvp. Ludicrous.

Jayson Stark uses his column this evening at ESPN.com to bring up some interesting thoughts - most of which are already on the board but he expands slightly further. One interesting point he makes is this:

OK, here's a little game for you. These are the stats of two top-five finishers in the MVP race after July 1. Which is which?

Player A: 27 HR, 67 RBI, 12 doubles, 4 triples, .642 slugging pct. Player B: 27 HR, 65 RBI, 17 doubles, 2 triples, .661 slugging pct.

Before we reveal the names, which would you vote for if we told you Player A's team was already 21 games out of first place -- and 15½ out of the wild card -- when that stretch began, while Player B's team was only 3½ of first and hanging onto the wild-card lead by 1½?

Well, Player A was Alex Rodriguez. Player B was Boston's David Ortiz. We're not suggesting that Ortiz is a better player than A-Rod, or that he's a clear-cut MVP, or that you ought to write in his name in your local presidential primary.


That makes me slightly less angry with the fools that put Ortiz on their ballot, but only because they must have used the same logic when they picked A-Rod and, in theory, their other selections too.

I want to make it clear that I don't agree with Jayson Stark very often. I would not have voted for Shannon Stewart, for instance. But he did write an article detailing some pretty good reasons not to vote for A-Rod, and though I think he's just about as good a candidate as anyone else in the AL, I would've put him at least behind Delgado if not also Posada. Here's the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=1620939

And here's a few convincing points:

"This isn't the Most Picturesque Numbers Award. This isn't the Most Outstanding Player Award. This isn't even the Best Player Who Has Gotten Jobbed Out of an MVP in the Past Award.

This is about "value." We've voted on this award. We know how we defined "value." And it's obvious we weren't alone. MVP voters have traditionally prioritized "value" in terms of what it meant to teams that won, or at least contended.

The lessons of history couldn't be more clear. There have been 145 MVP trophies -- and 141 of them went to players on teams with winning records. That's 97 percent, friends."

So, to be fair to all those who refused to place A-Rod at the top, apparently the definition of value has always included that the player caused his team to be a winning team.

"2) WHERE WAS HE WHEN THEY NEEDED HIM?

OK, suppose we accept the argument that it is possible to have value on a non-contending team. Obviously, Andre Dawson, Ernie Banks and Cal Ripken all won MVP awards. So it must be possible, at least in some years.

But if you're going to be "valuable" on a last-place team, then you'd better be really, really, really valuable. You'd better be start-to-finish valuable. You'd better be able to demonstrate that, as your team fell apart all around you, you were the guy towing the boat with the rope in your mouth.

Well, unfortunately for A-Rod, we can't say that about him -- not this year.

Remember, when this season began, there was lots of talk about how this was the year the Rangers could finally get back to .500. For almost two months, that still looked like a possibility. But it isn't hard to look back and find the time this became another lost season.

After games of May 29, the Rangers were still within two games of .500 (25-27). Then, over the next 3½ weeks, they hurtled right off the AL West cliff.

They went 2-20 in their next 22 games -- a stretch of Tigers-like baseball that blew up the season. If we could say, "At least that wasn't A-Rod's fault," we could look at his MVP candidacy in a whole different light. But that isn't the case.

He went 2-for-23 with runners in scoring position during that time. He hit three homers and drove in seven runs (one fewer than Jason Bay drove in Friday in one game). In the first 16 games of that span, he had one homer and two RBI.

So as the ship sank, he sank with it. It really wasn't until his team's season was essentially over that he began compiling many of these alleged MVP numbers.

He hit the second-most home runs in the league in April (8). But he was 10th in May (6), 20th in June (5) and 21st in July (5), before leading the league in August (15) and September (7).

He was fifth in the AL in RBI in April (22). Then he fell to 44th in May (13), 34th in June (15) and 17th in July, before leading the league in August (31) and ranking third in September (15).

OK, how about slugging percentage -- a stat that doesn't depend on the contributions of anyone around him? He was fourth in the league in April (.667). But then he was 54th in May (.462), 31st in June (.540) and 37th in July (.505), before an .849 August (first) and .594 September (fifth).

Does that sound like an MVP season to you? It doesn't to us."

This seems like pretty good reasoning for not picking A-Rod as the MVP. Here's the thing about A-Rod. Everyone always says how exhibition games don't mean much. Well, since coming to Texas, A-Rod has basically played in 120 exhibition games per season. Obviously he's facing higher calibre pitching, but it can't help but make it easier to be playing in games that mean absolutely nothing. Now, A-Rod is pretty much as good a choice as any for MVP this year given the lack-lustre field (there are about 5 or 6 candidates in the NL who would make better candidates than anyone in the AL), but there seems to be perfectly good reason to not pick him. I think that Delgado had a similar drop in performance when Toronto went into a bit of a tail spin, so even though he's probably as good a choice as anyone, there's sufficient reasoning to not choose him also.

Now, as I said above, Stark chose Stewart as his MVP, which I don't agree with. However, I think his article proves that he's at least given a lot of thought to the choice of MVP, and taken it seriously.

If I recall correctly, Starks first pro-Stewart article started with "ESPN has asked me to make an argument for Shannon Stewart as the MVP." At the same time, Neyer wrote his pro-ARod article (although Neyer could have pulled out identical articles from the past 4 years and just retouched the numbers). The goal of the articles was to discuss what value meant. While I agreed with Neyer I was impressed with Stark's argument. He chose numbers that made Stewart look impressive while dismissing the one's that made Stewart appear no more than average. Of course, he can't be blamed for doing so. He was arguing one side rather than being objective. Objectivity would come from weighing the Stark article against the Neyer article.

However, a funny thing happened. Others began to look at Stewart as an MVP candidate and used Stark's one-sided article as proof. As the Stewart bandwagon gained steam, Stark forgot that his initial article was one-sided rather than objective. Subsequent articles began with the proposition that Stewart was the MVP and offered more numbers to back that up. This is similar to Christian scientists that start with the conclusion that creationism explains life on earth and then use whatever evidence supports their case while ignoring what doesn't.

Whatever. The right guy won and I'm sick of this discussion. Things won't get better until baseball takes the BBWAA out of the process or instructs them on what valuable means. I hope that tomorrow's discussion forgets this mess and focuses on Pat Hentgen becoming a Blue Jay.

"Please, Peteski, explain to us how anybody could choose Shannon Stewart. It is not simply a varying definition of 'value'. There is no possible interpretation of the word value that suggests Shannon Stewart for MVP."

First of all, I want to make it clear, I would not have voted for Shannon Stewart. I have not made a list, but I'm sure he wouldn't make my top 5, and I have serious doubts that he would make my top 10. So, let's get an opinion from someone who would have picked Stewart.

"We've thought. We've surveyed. We've debated. We've looked at all these guys' numbers except their zip codes. But in the end, "most valuable" to us means: Which player in the league made the biggest difference? Which player's team would not have gotten as far as it did without him? And the answer we kept coming back to was: Shannon Stewart. No player has ever won an MVP award after changing teams in midseason. But from the day Stewart showed up in Minnesota, the Twins went 46-23 (best record in baseball), went from five games under .500 to a team that blew apart its division, went from a lineup that scored 4.6 runs a game to one that scored 5.4 a game. And it was no coincidence that in that time, Stewart led all AL leadoff men in batting average (.322) and on-base percentage (.384). You can read our thoughts on A-Rod elsewhere on this site. But this was a year in which half the teams in the league had a shot to get to the playoffs in September. So we went with a guy who was the single most important reason his team won over David Ortiz and Jorge Posada, two players who had fabulous years but were surrounded by many players whose seasons were almost as good."

This is Jayson Stark's reasoning. Now, of course Shannon Stewart wasn't the only reason the Twins got significantly better, but don't sell him short. He was definitely a significant factor. It wasn't just Santana and the pitching, because the offense got nearly a full run better. A good leadoff man, and Stewart was evidently the best during his time with the Twins, is definitely going to help the offense a great deal.

Now, it's pretty hard to justify picking Stewart as the MVP. However, if you're going to use a strict definition of who's more valuable to his team, and say that means he had to have come from a playoff team, and he had to have been the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs than I don't think Stewart is outrageous. That's a pretty limited definition, sure, but the definition of value is pretty unclear here. Given that the Yankees and Red Sox have tons of great players, and probably could have made it without any one of their stars, and that the A's had no better candidate, according to his definition of value, Stewart is a reasonable choice. I'm not saying Stewart was the right choice, not by a long shot, but since the definition of value is extremely vague, you can reasonably justify backing Shannon Stewart.

if you're going to use a strict definition of who's more valuable to his team, and say that means he had to have come from a playoff team, and he had to have been the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs than I don't think Stewart is outrageous.

The 'strict definition' in the award criteria (can someone quote the official MLB version, I can't find it in a quick search) is defined. Unfortunately not clearly enough (obviously) but it is something to the effect of:

Contribution of Offense AND Defense to the team.
Character/Community/etc.

The Award criteria DOES NOT qualify value as being restrictive to playoff teams. MVP should = Best player in league. Period.
A-Rod is this. Piazza should have had a couple by now.

This is all IMHO of course...

Put me in the camp with those who say the MVP is the player who made the biggest percieved difference in the performance of their team. Thats always been my understanding of the MVP award be it the CFL, NHL or MLB. If you want an award for pure statistical performance do what the NHL did and award a Maurice Richard trophy for that. Call it the Babe Ruth, Ted Williams or Lou Gehrig award. It can be passed out on Sept 30th every yr. with no argument or speculation or even no fun.

...what the NHL did and award a Maurice Richard trophy for that... It can be passed out on Sept 30th every yr. with no argument or speculation or even no fun.

The Maurice Richard trophy has simple guidelines. Give it to the player who scored the most goals. There is 100% clarity in the rules.

The whole "fun" about the MVP award in baseball is, or at least should be, deciding who the best player is using all the metrics at our disposal. That there is no clear concensus on who the best player is (I'm choosing to leave the dubious word "valuable" out of this discussion) opens the door to wide open discussion.

Who contributed more to his team? Rodriguez or Delgado? Bonds or Pujols? Focusing the discussion on nothing more than that still makes for a lively discussion.

Unfortunately, we are saddled with the V in MVP every year, and what that might mean to so many different people. Even those in the BBWAA who choose V to stand for B (best), they still goof up in embarassing fashion, selecting Ortiz over Ramirez, etc.

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Thanks Craig! I just wanted to comment on this:

As a business analysis, it's dandy. Since I am not interested in baseball as a business (I'm interested in baseball as a sport, and as a business a distant second) it leaves me rather cold as a way of determining an MVP. But to each his own!

I realize my method is idiosyncratic. I like it, though, because I don't necessarily see "baseball as a sport" and "baseball as a business" being mutually exclusive.

Again, let's look at the "average" team wih a payroll of $70 or $80 million (or whatever it is). If they only get $70 or $80 million of performance out of their players, chances are they're not going to win a thing as there will be teams that get a lot more performance.

Unless you spend like the Yankees, getting players whose gross value equals their salary isn't a winning strategy. Teams with mid- and low- range payrolls need guys with high net values to compete. If they don't have them, they're toast.

I think most fans instinctively understand this. I mean, how many people have come in here suggesting Delgado be traded? Here's a guy who hit 42 homers and 145 RBI and people are wondering how much salary they'll have to eat to unload him!

In conclusion, it's guys with high net values, not high gross values that help you succeed on both the business side, and the sport side. Unless you're the Yankees, then all bets are off.

Cheers,

Mike

http://economics.about.com
OH GOD.

I've turned into Richard Griffin.

If you don't anger easily, see his new article "Baseball writers made wrong choice".

I don't think I'm giving anything away by showing you his final thoughts:

"On opening day, the Rangers had a team payroll of $103 million (all figures U.S.) while the Jays were at $51 million. They ended up 15 wins behind the Jays. Where's the value?"

Mike

The problem is that giving Stewart credit for the Twins' turn around is like saying it was the last drink that made me throw up.

Oh, Spicol, that had me laughing out loud.

If you're going to start considering salaries, then shouldn't you start considering other monetary issues? For example, Alex Rodriguez is worth far more in merchandising revenue to the Rangers than Bill Mueller is to the Red Sox. He probably represents something of an attendance boost over a "no-name" player like Mueller, too. A-Rod costs more than anyone else, but he also brings in more money than most other players.

As an extension to this: Is Albert Pujols automatically the NL MVP over Bonds?

http://economics.about.com
If you're going to start considering salaries, then shouldn't you start considering other monetary issues? For example, Alex Rodriguez is worth far more in merchandising revenue to the Rangers than Bill Mueller is to the Red Sox. He probably represents something of an attendance boost over a "no-name" player like Mueller, too. A-Rod costs more than anyone else, but he also brings in more money than most other players.

Absolutely. I've always argued that late 90's Cal Ripken was a lot more valuable to the Orioles than a lot of statheads gave him credit for, for precisely this reason.

Cheers,

Mike

Oh, Spicol, that had me laughing out loud.

Hit close to home, Craigers?

Nah, I haven't been puking drunk in years. Brings back the memories, though, and the nearby lexical arrangement of "Shannon Stewart" and "throw up" is always a propos.

RESOLVING THE ISSUE

OK, as you all know, the only legitimate way to figure all this out is through another trip down ...

(wait for it)

... Anagram Lane! Looking at the Top 5, then:

We all know, as mentioned above, that Carlos Delgado is quite bitter about this. In fact, he seems bitter not only about the award but about the paycheck of the guy who won it.

"Carlos Delgago" = A-Rod? Gold Laces.

Someone seems to be warning Joe Torre, accurately or not, about Jorge Posada as we see ...

"Jorge Posada" = Joe! A OPS drag.

Whereas David Ortiz just raises a question -- possibly about the people who voted for him.

"David Ortiz" = Diva or Ditz?

We have no idea what to make of A-Rod's anagram, but it apparently has something to do with a former teammate. (Hey, "z" and "x" BOTH in the name? Scrabble nightmares.)

"Alex Rodriguez" = Guard, Zeile rox!

And here's the clincher.

(Wait for it.)

"Shannon Stewart" = Wasn't he non-star?

http://insider.espn.go.com/insider/story?id=1664536
For all of you ESPN Insiders, COMN to read a great article by Jim Baker, baseball evangelist. It's called "The Top 10 Iconoclastic A.L. MVP Votes". It's obviously a pay site, so in keeping with the 'rules' of the Internet, I'm not going to quote much, but this is of particular interest to this thread. The thing that was second-most different from the pack, and therefore wacky is:

2. Carlos Delgado absent from a ballot
It is perfectly acceptable to believe that Delgado is not the MVP or even worthy of the runner-up in spite of the fact that he had either the best or second-best season in the league this year. However, to believe he does not belong in the top ten is downright scandalous. Jim Souhan and Bill Ballou were crucified in some circles for leaving Hideki Matsui off their Rookie of the Year ballots, but this is a far greater outrage in that brings into question the very qualifications of the person who did so.

Has anyone fessed up to leaving Delgado off? (Who votes in Toronto? I assume Bob Elliot.)

Mike,

You should create an award like "Best Acquisition" and give the award to a GM. Bill Mueller doesn't earn much less than A-Rod by choice - why should he get an MVP just because he produces more per dollar? What exactly has Mueller done, himself, to make him worthy of an MVP?

If you want a net value award - it should go to the person who made the decision to sign the player to the salary that makes his net value high.

http://economics.about.com
Spicol, see message #96 in this thread. Specifically:

"Delgado got two eighth-place votes and was left off the ballot by Joe Cowley of the Daily Southtown in Chicago. Cowley also left off Toronto center fielder Vernon Wells, while including Esteban Loaiza and Frank Thomas of the White Sox."

Cheers,

Mike

I have no problem with ARod winning the award, even though I wanted Delgado to win it. But for those that are desperately trying to defend the award, there is one idea that might explain it:

Alex Rodriguez had zero teammates get votes.

He had no one to share the votes with, no one to distract the voters and say "well, he had help" (like Delgado and Posada did).

It's flimsy, and also leads to Shannon Stewart getting a high placing, but I think it might have been the deciding factor.

Maybe I over-simplify the MVP process. I just imagine all the players in the league standing against the backstop, and my vote goes to whoever I would choose first on a pickup team. This means that A-Rod wins every year, unless he's hurt. He's the best player, by quite a bit. It means Bonds wins in the NL again, though Pujols made me think twice for the first time in ages.

I don't care about the standings, who was in a playoff race, their stats with RISP, their salaries, so-called leadership or any other factors. Obviously the writers do, so who "should" win doesn't always match up. The BBWAA used to be RBI-obsessed, which is why I thought Delgado had a chance. As it turns out, they got the right man, but have never looked more foolish.

The votes for Shannon Stewart are idiotic. He missed a month, and the coincidence of the Twins getting hot when he arrived seems as relevant to me as the Jays' poor record when he was here. Likewise, David Ortiz is undeserving of first-place votes, though his second half warranted consideration for the lower half of the ballot. What puzzles me the most was the Jason Giambi selection. I don't know which writer to blame, but I assume it was a protest vote against sanity.

Delgado's disappointment is understandable. He was the clear leader at the break, and if I'm not mistaken, everyone who led the RBI race by that much has won the award. I thought it should have been a close two-man race, and I would have been thrilled as a Jays fan if Carlos won. Both were worthy, but it's hard to overlook a shortstop who hits like a first baseman.

Mick, you're wasting your time here. You should set up a timeshare blog with the Score Bard. Great stuff!

What puzzles me the most was the Jason Giambi selection. I don't know which writer to blame, but I assume it was a protest vote against sanity.

The writer who thought that Jason "I Didn't Do Anything As Well As Carlos" Giambi had the most valuable year in all the A.L. was...Mark Saxon of the Oakland Tribune. Now it all makes sense.

Wait -- no, it doesn't! Huh?!?

One of the biggest problems I have with the Stewart for MVP writers, is how they want to reward Shannon for what amounts to half a season of play. I haven't read anything that really lauds Stewart for the time he spent with the Jays this season, so Stark and whomever voting for him is seemingly saying that half a season of Stewart was more valuable than a full season of Delgado or Rodriguez, which is of course balogny.

Although I'm annoyed that Delgado was left off two ballots, had he been included and received first place votes, he would have garnered another 28 points. This would still place him behind ARod unless at least one first-place vote came at the expense of Arod receiving it.

More likely, the writers who left Delgado off their ballots would not have given him a top-3 vote. ARod wins either way.

The Giambi vote is inexplicable.

BTW: viewing this thread in Mozilla or Firebird browsers is a pain; there's some seriously broken HTML which doesn't render properly - I had to resort to using IE to view this thread. The problem starts at comment 95.

You know what can solve every baseball discussion?

WIN SHARES! :)

In the order in which they came in the MVP race, here are the Win Shares (rounded off) and rank by Win Shares of each of the players receiving votes.

Alex Rodriguez, Texas          33   1st
Carlos Delgado, Toronto        32   2nd
Jorge Posada, New York         28   5th
Shannon Stewart, Minnesota     18   40th
David Ortiz, Boston            15   68th
Manny Ramirez, Boston          28   7th
Nomar Garciaparra, Boston      25   12th
Vernon Wells, Toronto          26   9th
Carlos Beltran, Kansas City    28   4th
Bret Boone, Seattle            30   3rd
Miguel Tejada, Oakland         25   10th
Bill Mueller, Boston           23   14th
Jason Giambi, New York         28   6th
Garret Anderson, Anaheim       25   11th
Keith Foulke, Oakland          21   23rd
Frank Thomas, Chicago          23   19th
Eric Chavez, Oakland           25   13th
Carlos Lee, Chicago            20   29th
Magglio Ordonez, Chicago       23   20th
Alfonso Soriano, New York      27   8th
Derek Jeter, New York          18   44th
Pedro Martinez, Boston         20   31st
Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle         23   17th
Esteban Loaiza, Chicago        23   16th
Jason Varitek, Boston          17   56th
Aubrey Huff, Tampa Bay         22   21st
Mariano Rivera, New York       18   49th

Not receiving votes : Hudson and Halladay, 23 WS each, 15th and 18th overall

The voters generally acquitted themselves well, except for with regard to two players, the identity of whom is obvious.

Considering his WS total, his defensive wizardry, and the fact he carried the Royals this season, Carlos Beltran was the guy who really got jobbed in the voting.

Carlos Beltran was the guy who really got jobbed in the voting.

An equally emphatic claim could be made for Bret Boone.

Beltran and Boone seemed to be victims of a weird thing this year, which was to judge MVP candidates based on their team's performance in August and September.

Beltran and Boone seemed to be victims of a weird thing this year, which was to judge MVP candidates based on their team's performance in August and September.

You could say the same of A-Rod in 2002.

I wonder, seriously, if one of the two writers who left Delgado off their ballots did so accidentally. You know, the writer couldn't decide between Carlos and Boone for third or fourth, figured he'd finish his ballot and would return to the issue, then went back and plugged in Boone and forgot Carlos. I know that's a copout, and highly unlikely, but there just seems to be no way two people could be THAT clueless or, worse, vindictive toward Toronto and Carlos. As someone said earlier, it's OK that someone would not vote for Carlos as MVP, but to leave him off the ballot by choice is a decision that is hard for me to digest. Sort of like that turkey chili I had last night.

The question went unanswered, but I thought I'd ask again. Does anyone know if it is the same Joe Cowley that pitched for the Yanks and White Sox? ("That" Joe Cowley threw a no-hitter... then never won another ML game!)

I did a quick web search and came up empty. (The same question went unanswered on Primer once). I did learn, though "that" Cowley and Delgado were both teammates of Ken Dayley and Rickey Henderson! :-)

No, it's not the same Joe Cowley. I heard him giving his "defense" for not voting for Carlos. Apparently, he gets confused with that player a lot.

Anyway, he left Carlos off his ballot, and had Shannon Stewart as his first choice with A-Rod as his fifth choice. He said he didn't think Carlos was even the MVP on his team, that Wells and Halladay were both more valuable in the Jays run. Although, I don't think he voted for Wells anyway, and he obviously didn't vote for Halladay. Strangely enough, he's a Chicago writer, and he managed to find room on his ballot for both Frank Thomas and Esteban Loaiza (who didn't get any other votes). If his key to MVP is how important a player was to his team's success, and that the team must be successful, I don't understand how White Sox players have any more right to be on the ballot than Blue Jays. Both teams had equivalent records, and the White Sox had a much easier schedule. The White Sox were closer to making the playoffs, but only because they were in the abomination that is the AL Central. I'm willing to buy that an MVP should make his team more successful, but the White Sox were no more successful than the Blue Jays.

Wow, Joe Cowley is mad. He's also a big believer in magic pixie dust.

From the fingertips of Joe:After being traded from the Blue Jays in mid-July, Stewart gave the Twins an attitude and energy they had been missing all season long. And for "Johnny Baseball Stats," who needs numbers for every argument, Toronto's batting average went down 24 points after Stewart left, while Delgado's average went down 29 points and his homers dropped from 28 to 14 without Stewart. So who was really the MVP on that team?

Not only did Stewart get Minnesota's bats going upon his arrival, but he single-handedly beat teams with his glove and legs. He willed them to the postseason.

he single-handedly beat teams with his glove and legs

With his legs? Stewart stole three bases and was caught four times. The guy could barely run this year, with the hamstring problems.

What a wackjob!

I wonder if Shannon Stewart will be offered arbitration by the Twins.

Anyways, Craig summarized the situation very well. This MVP vote was on the whole not bad, save for the Stewart and Ortiz votes. "Intangible contributions to a winning team" trumping "offensive and defensive performance" would be my summary.

Joe Cowley is obviously an idiot.

The one thing I like about the MLB awards, though, is that we know who voted for who. This makes each of these writers accountable, just as they hold players accountable for their play.

My favourite quote:

And as far as "I was expecting to get the award … ," that's a real sad commentary on the selfishness of too many players. Maybe Delgado should expect to do whatever it takes to get his team to the playoffs, instead of expecting to win what too many other voters have turned into a popularity contest.

Carlos scored 117 runs for his team and drove in 145. Unless Cowley expected Delgado to be an effective #3 starter as well, what else could he have done for his "team"?

I love the self-righteousness and sweeping tone of his conclusion. It's like he thinks he brokered peace in the Middle East.

In fairness to Cowley, the playoff route for the Jays was merely through New York and Boston. It's not like they had to face the Olympian task of scaling Mount AL Central.