A Pitcher Won the MVP–the horror!
I did a little LQTM this morning when I read that Verlander said “I think this set a precedent.” Uh, dude, 24 other pitchers have won the MVP….
Did I have a problem with him winning it? Heck no. I believe that the MVP should he dominant, first and foremost. Usually, for that to happen, it’s going to be a position player since you would recognize dominance more often if you see it every day rather than every 5th day. But in this case, the circumstances really did come together for Verlander. First of all, he was absolutely dominant. He won 24 games, exactly 25% of his team’s total wins. He won the pitcher’s triple crown. Without him there is no way Detroit makes the playoffs. Of the contenders, he’s also the only one who stood above the others in terms of obviously impacting their berth in the playoffs…..
The other guys? Yes, Ellsbury, Bautista, THEEEEEEEEEEEEEE GRAAAAAAAAAAANDYMAN!!!! and Miggy Cabrera all had fine years. But none of those guys were dominant the way Verlander was. Hell, Boston and Toronto didn’t even make the playoffs. And Granderson was just another one of the big bats on that team. He put up great numbers but that team always has 3 or 4 or more guys going “cartoon” on the league. You take Grandy out and they still go off. Don’t believe me? A-Rod was a non-factor in the second half and they still walked away with the division. Tex had a great season too but he didn’t even get an MVP vote (I don’t think). Grandy hit .262. You better bang out 100 hr’s if you’re gonna hit .262 and expect to win the MVP. And Miggy? Sure he played in a lot more games than Verlander but can you point to 25% of their wins and give him DIRECT credit for winning them? No way.
Were I wearing a hat this morning, it would be doffed in the direction of Justin Verlander—an award well-earned……
___________________________________________________________
The Retro Game of the Day!!!!!
As we march through the Summer of ’78, we now take a look at a Friday night Giants/Dodgers game. 47,944 showed up for this one. Vida Blue vs Doug Rau. Wuite a battle. The Giants won 2-1. Vida started the 9th having giving up a single hit. He got the first 2 outs then Reggie Smith banged a double off him. That was enough for Altobelli who pulled him for Moffitt who got Cey to fly out to center to end the game. I would LOVE to know how many pitches Vida through that game but I couldn’t find that number at baseball-reference.com. This great win sent the Dodgers to their 6th straight loss of the season. We’re still in first place……..
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I demand a recount!
Yeah, I’m totally fine with Verlander winning when you see the runners-up. Ellsbury? Nice year on a team that has a lot of hitters. Playoffs? Uh, no. The rest? Ehhhh.
Yeah, I vaguely remember this game. Blue pitching against the Dogs was always a game to listen to.
MVP is for the regular season.
There are 5 AL pitchers in the top 10 players for WAR this year.
Bautista would have gotten my vote among the position players.
2 , according to FanGraphs, in the AL. How many of *your* 5 won the MVP by WAR this year?
Pitchers should not be eligible to win the MVP. Hell, you can make a better case for closers, at least they don’t spend 4 of every 5 days drinkng beer and eating fried chicken in the clubhouse 😉
“Hell, Boston and Toronto didn’t even make the playoffs.” Well, I presume you’ll then join me in asserting that Kemp doesn’t deserve the NL award…
Verlander was DIRECTLY responsible for 25 wins? Interesting. How many runs did he drive in in those 25 wins? Sorry, he was *directly* responsible for exactly zero wins… he got his much deserved CY, MVP should not be open to pitchers.
Twin is right on!
And in his league, pitchers don’t even come to bat! No hitting! No bunting!
thx for the LU again, flav. billy north in there, always liked that guy, and LeMaster hit 7th.
I give verlander credit, he didn’t just win, he dominated the entire league.
Texas gave Nathan 14 mil for 2 years, with the idea Feliz is a starter; Pirates signed Barmes at 2 for 10.
Bosox allegedly still talking to Valentine, tho I don’t know how you get a word in edgewise. One of the telecasts from arlington this season, the straight man btw he and orel mentions that bobby v worked for pres. bush when he was on rangers. Val then says,” yes, and he also fired me, and then I voted for him anyway.” Which ought to disqualify him permanently for anything.
Anyone who saw Nathan pitch last year could see he wasn’t the same. Now, if you subscribe to the theory that TJ guys are best the 2nd year after the surgery then I could see him having a bounce back year. But I wouldn’t risk it with his age and all the miles on that arm. Dumb signing if you ask me….
Excellent point WillieD– Verlander didn’t just win, he dominated the league. And none of the other position guys did that in the AL this year. Again, that was my point for why he deserved to win it. It’s nice to see some people get it. 🙂
I don’t have an opinion on whether he deserves MVP or not, but he was outstanding all year. Having an ace that you can count on to out pitch the other guy every time he goes out there and pick up a W is pretty “valuable.”
Well, he was easily the CY winner…but he’s actually tied for 7th ( with Granderson) by WAR behind Ellsbury, Bautista, Pedroia, Kinsler, Miggy, and even Sabathia ( FanGraphs). If pitchers are to be eligible, that sounds about right. Position players in the AL, BTW, do FAR more things than pitchers when you undertake assessing their value.
Baseball Prospectus has similar rankings . Now I know how this works- suddenly BP and Fangrahs will be unreliable sources when their unbiased rankings conflict with preconceived notions. FACT is that, even with pitchers eligible, Verlander wasn’t within spitting distance of the league MVPs..
They got the two CY winners right- making the playoffs isn’t and shouldn’t be a factor in that award- in fact, you can make a case as with Kershaw this year, Felix in 2010, and Tim in 2008, their records for losing teams were all the more remarkable. With the MVP, I don’t buy that being responsible for keeping your team from sucking even more should be a qualification. Kemp should be eligible for some kind of “Best Player For All The Good It Did Award “..I’m not saying the team has to make the playoffs but they should at least be playing “meaningful” games in September. I fear that Kemp *will* win but the winner should be Upton with Braun a close second…and even with his missed time, Panda deserves a top ten finish..
Twin is taking on BF!
No, I’m just proividing a few facts .
Some guys just have monster years that ‘should’ be rewarded. That’s the theory anyway. Andre Dawson springs to mind . . . The Cubbies were a last place team when he won it.
I bet Chuck is into “monsters.”
What is shocking is that the Pirates signed Barmes for more than $5 mill a year for two years. The ineptness of the management of teams like the pirates shows us why they will never win.
At least they have a nice view from their park.
agreed, so stupid.
The Dawson MVP year is still a poster child, but not chiefly because of the Cub’s last place finish:
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/16403/bad-mvp-winners-andre-dawson
I’m not saying that making the playoffs is a must for an MVP. I’m saying that if they are largely responsible for making the playoffs then that’s just another reason I’d vote for them. But as I said in my thread, *dominance* is the most important thing to me. At least if I had a vote, that’s the way I’d go……
Unless they get rid of the Cy Young award, pitchers should not be eligible for the MVP. Period
Barmes was a good fallback for Mario Crawford, but not for that money.
If you consider WAR a good indicator of relative player value, then the fact that Verlander played in only 34 games shouldn’t matter.
It seems unlikely a bullpen guy would ever be considered for MVP using that measure. I know I sure as hell would never vote for a closer.
If you’re referring to my beer comment, there was a smiley face because it wasn’t a seroius comment. What is serious is an AL pitcher in particular doesn’t do enough to merit MVP consideration. As I said, 7th was about right if you even allow them in.
I guess the question is “Do enough of what?” According to the WAR stat, Verlander had a bigger impact on his team’s W-L record than any other player in the league. For position players, I am a little skeptical of WAR because it folds in fielding stats that aren’t as solid as the offensive numbers. Haven’t really thought about it much for pitchers.
Pitchers are in a separate category. They can’t hit, and they frequently run the bases like softball players and many can’t even field their positions properly.
The same could be said for a few position players. A certain backup catcher comes to mind.
POTD…and quite a few pitchers can also do all of the above, another reason they help their team win and stay in games longer.
FanGraphs does have Kemp as NL MVP by WAR. It’s simply my position that to actually win the award, your team had to at least have been in contention. So I’ll correct where JVerlander ranks by that criteria- tied for 6th, not seventh.
As many have posited, there should be a “Best Player” award seperate from the MVP so guys like Kemp and Dawson can be recognized
Of course Dawson was recognized in 87, which was a poor decision.
Verlander’s WAR according to baseball reference was 8.6, best in the league. I wonder what accounts for the discrepancy.
Here is the FanGraph’s explanation of that:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/why-our-pitcher-war-uses-fip/
If the DH is so wonderful that the NL should adopt it, why don’t we see more DH’s in the MVP discussion, much less having a pitcher win it.
They should and right now!
I’m not crazy either about a pitcher getting MVP. And relievers even less so since they pitch about a third of the innings a starter does.
Interesting that you tied in Verlander with a game pitched by Vida, who of course was AL MVP in ’71. And Hector Cruz at cleanup? Compared to that, Bengie batting cleanup doesn’t seem quite so bad.
A DH is far more comparable to a starting pitcher than he is to an everyday position player.
Notable Winter League numbers:
Hector Sanchez 90 AB .389 BA 4 HR 18 RBI 1.017 OPS ( VWL)
Joe Panik 93 AB .323 BA 2 HR 13 RBI .867 OPS (AFL)
Belt 100 AB .300 BA 3 HR 11 RBI .865 OPS (DWL)
Crawford 87 AB .276 BA 2 HR 12 RBI .729 OPS(AFL)
Brown 50 AB .220 BA 0 HR 4 RBI .578 OPS ( AFL, sent home sick)
Peguero 80 AB .263 BA 1 HR 7 RBI .648 OPS (DWL)
Adrianza 47 AB .298 BA 0 HR 2 RBI .736 OPS (VWL)
Crawford and Panik were named to the AFL’s 2011 Top Prospects Team.
Brandon Crawford, Scottsdale Scorpions (San Francisco Giants): Tied for third-longest hitting streak in the league with 16-game streak, Oct. 6-Nov. 11 … hit .338 (24-for-71) with 2 doubles, 2 triples, 2 home runs, 9 RBI and 11 runs scored during streak … season-high three hits, Oct. 10 and Oct. 15 … six multi-hit games.
Joe Panik, Scottsdale Scorpions (San Francisco Giants): Hit safely in 18 of his final 21 games … five multi-hit games over seven-game stretch, Nov. 1-11 … 10 strikeouts in 104 plate appearances (fourth in AFL) … second in the AFL in November average, hitting .439 (18-for-41) with 5 doubles, 1 triple, 1 home run, 8 RBI and 3 runs in 12 games … extra-base hit in five straight games, Nov. 11-16 … AFL Rising Star … 4-for-5 with a double Nov. 3.
Unfortunately, Mario Crawford finished up .205 in his last 10 games, .262 OBP, .570 OPS. And he hit just .125 total against LHers. I don’t see anything that would prompt them to give him the job.
Why shouldn’t a pitcher be eligible for MVP? Yes, the CY is an award for the best pitcher. But the MVP isn’t called the Most Valuable Player except for pitchers. There is no reason a pitcher can’t be the best player. Hats off to Verlander.
Several reasons have been listed.
all dumb. And I love how everyone has ignored the facts: um. He won. So other people apparently share the opinion that a pitcher should be allowed to win the award….
How about starting with a mea cupa on being dead fucking wrong on your Wiki post yesterday? We know he won..and I’m sure you agree with every award over the last few decades, right? ..you’re pretty fucking selective on when you agree with the powers that be.Dumb response… maybe you SHOULD check wikki more often.
per the San Jose Merc, the Giants added these guys to the 40 man, to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.
Outfielders Roger Kieschnick and Tyler Graham, second baseman Charlie Culberson, and pitchers Dan Otero and Hector Correa and Angel Villalona
TF can you provide the analyst of these players
Also .
Giants removed outfielder Darren Ford and pitcher Waldis Joaquin from the 40-man roster and designated them for assignment.
Flavor knows everything, ask his ass. I’m sick of helping you people. I’m still getting shit over a 4 year old prediction for Ortmeier that was 100% supported by his numbers the previous year. I’ll discuss Tejada if anyone is dumb enough to try to show that my call on him wasn’t supported.
It’s an interesting argument; I respect everyone’s position, you guys all make good points. I didn’t follow AL closely enough to really have an opinion either way on who the MVP is, and don’t really care one way or the other. If I had bob gibson on my team in 1968 and he put up a 1.12 ERA and dominated the entire league all season long, he’s the MVP, and I think the rest of the players would agree.
Because for me, the “best player” is the guy who deserves the MVP that year, regardless of what the rest of his team did or where they finished. I’m talking about the top player who had the best over all season of anyone in the league. That’s my MVP.
BTW, not accusing Flavor of shit, I’m sure it’s one lof the pro-Verlander dicks with multiple PCs, but JV just picked up 5 votes in 10 minutes ( right before noon) after having 2 for about 4 hours.
Ryan Braun wins the NL MVP. He earned it. Although, wouldn’t have been able to argue against Kemp either.
Kemp had no business winnming. As Flavor said, your opinion doesn’t count for the shit because the vote is in.
You may be right about Kemp…who’s opinion matters for shit? I’m pretty sure no one who posts on this board has a meaningful vote for any of these awards. So everyone here is just putting in their two cents with others who are willing to give them a listen.
It’s Flavor who said any opinions that don’t support Verlander are wrong because he won. So that applies to the NL MVP vote as well… and what a shock- even though it doesn’t advance a single argument other than “duh, why not?”, the POTD is one that agrees with Craig’s position..
Well he had 3 at 10am today so you must not be countin’ too good…..
and while it lags about an hour behind, we’ve got 197 page views so far today.
Ok, 4 in 10 minutes.
Lets have a mud fight!
It’s funny really. In 2008 I argued that Timmy would win the CY based on the advanced metrics rather than just W-L. Flavor and Chuckles were freaked- it had to be Webb because he’d won more games. I’m always delighted when I’m able to help ..
Shit, yer worse than my wife. I disagreed with you about something 3 years ago?
And it was a month before the vote that I was thinking Webb would win it.
You’re the dipshit still yapping about “Ray-Ray” and Ortmeier..the point is I had to school you boys about some of the more advanced stats..a month before is even worse than earlier to still be blathering about how many wins Webb had..
You said Timmy would win but it had nothing to do with saber metrics– it was just another homer pick by you. At the time we debated it, I think Webb was 5 wins ahead of Timmy. It was only last year (when king Felix won with 13 wins) that it became clear wins no longer matter to voters. But don’t flatter yourself with this ‘education’ you gave us. It was your usual homer-bullshit pick. Nothing more. Hey, you nailers at one good for you
Chuck always need some help. His wife must be a saint.
It was always about his other superior numbers. Always.-
You railed and railed that I was FOS and that Webb would win because of his win total. I pointed out the peripherals. You were still stuck in the Ice Ages. …Sorry, pal, maybe you’d be better off just going with Wiki on your facts.
“Hey, you nailers at one good for you”
Nice speakum English..
It became clear to Flavor last year, many others were voting based on factors beyond W-L and ERA before that. 2008 for sure and Tim’s win in 2009 as well.
Below are the baseball reference AL WAR leaders for the last 10 years, position players and pitchers. Interesting how valuable starting pitchers are deemed by this measure. As far as I can tell, the FG WAR attempts to eliminate the uncertainty of team defense from the calculus. The primary criticism is that this ignores actual results to an extreme degree.
2011 Jose Bautista (TOR) 8.5 Justin Verlander (DET) 8.6
2010 Evan Longoria (TBR) 7.6 Felix Hernandez (SEA) 6.2
2009 Joe Mauer (MIN) 7.9 Zack Greinke (KCR) 9.0
2008 Joe Mauer (MIN) 8.7 Cliff Lee * (CLE) 7.3
2007 Alex Rodriguez (NYY) 9.9 CC Sabathia * (CLE) 6.8
2006 Grady Sizemore (CLE) 7.3 Johan Santana * (MIN) 6.3
2005 Alex Rodriguez (NYY) 8.4 Johan Santana * (MIN) 7.4
2004 Ichiro Suzuki (SEA) 8.1 Johan Santana * (MIN) 7.0
2003 Alex Rodriguez (TEX) 7.7 Roy Halladay (TOR) 7.5
2002 Alex Rodriguez (TEX) 8.2 Roy Halladay (TOR) 6.9
2001 Jason Giambi (OAK) 10.3 Mike Mussina (NYY) 6.5
Let’s see, will I turn 53 or 54 next year . . . .
Anybody know that the Count pitched a no-hitter at home and Bob Welch won 27 games in the NL?
And Mike will turn 11 . . .
Why are you saying Welch won 27 games in the NL? I never said that, everyone knows he won it in the AL for the A’s, idiot.
God, that one is soooo tempting, Chuckles…
Anyway, it seems that the other “homers” stuffed the ballot box, Timmy kinda won.
twin, are you really going to make fun of a spelling error? Really? From you? Hmmmmm. Ok, I’ll let that one go. I was posting form my iPhone and auto correct screwed me again.
Back when we were discussing the Webb/Timmy CY thing, it WAS about wins. That was ALWAYS the way CY voters went. At the time, Webb was 5 wins ahead of Timmy somewhere in middle or late August as I recall. He closed the gap in wins in the last 6 weeks and his superior underlying numbers were enough to win him the votes. From there it was well documented that the voters aren’t considering wins as much as they did in the past culminating with Felix H winning it last year with 13 wins.
Thanks for the the typo-reminder. Maybe I clean up your next email to me, too?
I told you then that his peripherals would win it. Anyone saying otherwise, uh, “misremembers”.
I can’t recall the exact game but do have memories of Vida Blue cheerleading in front of the whole Candlestick crowd that year.
It wasn’t just spelling, the sentence didn’t make sense…look,why don’t you just do as you disgustingly suggested you’d do and publish all of my personal E-Mails that concerned my health? (because of my right side deficit and no sight in one eye, depending on other factors, I often type gibberish until I edit it.)
That’s what Craig is equating to my remark about his sentence. Class.
I don’t give a flying fuck about the REASON you spell like shit in your first drafts. If you’re going to sit at the blog 24/7 and take shots at everyone, make fun of posters (me included) for their opinions (or their typos) then I am not giving you SHIT for rope on anything. If you were a pleasant person who wasn’t a total fucking asshole to everyone, then I probably would. See the diff?
You’re the troublemaker, everyone is just too scared to call you on it. Anyway- publish the E-Mails…
people *call me* on shit all the time. I get emails that call me the dumbest fuck on the planet. I had a guy last week who told me he’d *bought* my url and that he now owns my blog and I have to do what he says. There are plenty of email complaints about you, too, though I haven’t gotten one recently…….
Are you guys on a diet of Sour Cream? It tastes too bitter here.
I’m out.
that’s probably best, Pawlie. Sorry. I am not in a mood to put up with any shit from this dude today…..
STFU, publish the E-Mails. And who gives a shit what mood you’re in?
you fucking publish them you fuck. I never said once in my 4:19pm post, or even suggested it, that I would be publishing your emails. Where do you see that? Are you seeing things now? WTF is WRONG with you!?!?!?!!?!?!??!?
I threatened to publish your emails months ago, I never did it, and I said I never would. YOU are the stupid fuck bringing it up today.
My 4:19pm post was a subtle way to tell you to go fuck yourself for calling me out on a single fucking typo in my earlier post.
I won’t get in on the discussions about WAR, etc. proving or disproving Verlander’s worth as MVP. I’ll admit I’m not well versed in all that. Also, I don’t subscribe to this thread’s lede requirement that a player “dominate” to be an MVP, whatever that means. The MVP award has NO definitional parameters — one of its pluses, and surely one of its minuses — leading to arguments such as these on this thread. My main point is as yesterday’s; IMO a pitcher’s MVP is the Cy Young. Position players don’t get that award, they don’t qualify. Pitchers ARE players, but they have their own award, the MVP is for the other positions. Verlander pitched 4 complete games this past season, meaning all the rest of his appearances used the Pen. 30+ appearances with most having Pen help to close is typical of top starters now, and that’s simply not enough to win an MVP, especially in the AL when they don’t even have to get off their ass to hit/jog a few times a game. When Marichal was pitching brawny, astounding 20+ complete games a season, he didn’t even win a Cy, let alone an MVP. Starters participate in, at best, around 20% of the season’s games. You can’t “dominate” in the other 80% of the games by sitting in the dugout, or drinking beer and chewing chicken in the clubhouse…
I think if you took a poll of the players he pitched to you might find they would you the word “dominating” to describe Verlander in 2011……
Probably true. However, Lincecum was “dominating” in his Cy seasons, too, but with far fewer wins than Verlander due to lack of run support. As much of a fan as I am of him, even if he were to win 25, I would never consider Timmeh to be league MVP. Just my view; pitchers don’t play enough to justify that award…
Santana was just as dominating in ’04 . There have been scads of dominating seasons by pitchers that didn’t result in an MVP. Verlander deserved his CY but how can anyone argue that the Gold Glove CFer, Silver Slugger winner, .321 BA 39 SB 105 RBI 119 runs 32 HR .928 OPS- from the leadoff spot ,wasn’t deserving? In this case I think being a Boston player hurt him.
But he was also .358 with 8 HR during the collapse. Should have been the MVP.
Based an Craig’s earlier statement, there’s about a dozen “dumb” reasons there…
First post insulting others was Craig’s. As usual, the idea that I was insulting people all day is utter trash. It got heated after Flavoro said that all reasons for going with JV were dumb. Until then it was firm but fair back and forth from all.
I DID think they were dumb. Maybe I should have used a word like “incorrect” or a term like “off base”. You seem to think that because I called the dissenting opinions “dumb” that meant you could start blathering away about a mistake (it was one mistake, not two) I made about wikipedia (WTF did THAT have to do with the conversation today?), call CHUCK a *dipshit*, criticize my English over a single typo, tell me to publish your personal emails, say I’ve got no class….do I need to go on? All because I said the arguments against Verlander winning the MVP were *dumb*? Sorry dipshit, that doesn’t give you free reign to go crazy on my blog. Take it somewhere else if that’s what you think this place is all about…….
Not specifically directed at Twin . . . This is to everyone – blog is way more fun when there is mutual respect. I love it when we can disagree without being disagreeable . . . Just sayin.’
No one was disagreeable until I said there were several reasons cited for someone other than Verlander winning. Flavor immediatedly responded “all dumb”. So, as is nearly always the case, he starts it, and unlike his fawning minions, I don’t take it. If poor Chuckie ( check HIS rants over the years) gets “dipshitted” in the process, tough crap. I’m just like his old lady, as he noted.
Anyway, it’s easy to review the posts and see where it got off course.
I didn’t say anything I regret. ESPECIALLY after Craig has now more than once dismissed the condition that causes me to edit posts and other correspondence.That IS classless. That’s the same as calling him a dipshit? I have NEVER used my health status to curry some kind of favor towards my posts. I’ve stopped updating it, partially because I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about it and partially because I don’t want it thrown back at me someday.
BTW, there WERE two errors, dude. Montefusaco never threw a no-hitter at HOME and you were looking at NL winners- Welch won 27 for the A’s- in my usual generosity, I even sent the link..
Link to the right if you would like to comment on the true MVP. Unless I get 86ed, as usual I’ll post my comments on relevant topics in the morning. Or maybe not. Whatever.
Like old times with Twin in the middle of a brouhha! Good show!
Thank God yer here to keep it unreal, Nippy . . .