the recent dumb dumb MVP results (cont.)

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Goldman on how merely above average the Canadian Ribby Guy was:

http://www.yesnetwork.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061122&content_id=1413900&oid=36019&vkey=5


Without Morneau, the Twins would have had some other first baseman. That hypothetical hitter probably wouldn't have hit as well, but Morneau's season was run of the mill, as very good seasons go, neither historic nor unique, so it's possible that the Twins could have gotten something close. The average major league first baseman hit about .282/.358/.482 this year. Morneau hit .321/.375/.559. He was above average, but not spectacularly so.

Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 28 November 2006 17:39 (seventeen years ago) link

The YES Network, you say?
It's been a week, enough already, let's bitch about McGwire or something instead.

nate p., Wednesday, 29 November 2006 00:01 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, really, the yes network site is pretty much a house organ. use better sources pls.

i liked murray chass' (morneau-defending) column yesterday, the headline of which calls new york "podunk, 10036":

Sad to think it, sad to say it, but the most cosmopolitan city in the country may be the most provincial. I have long thought that New York is a disappointingly provincial place, and the reaction among fans and the news media to the American League Most Valuable Player award last week is just the latest piece of proof.

What? Derek Jeter wasn’t named the most valuable player? How could that be? Horrors! What’s wrong with those baseball writers? Send them off to cover hockey, if that’s the best they can do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/sports/baseball/28chass.html

maura johnston (maura), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

sorry, I think S. Goldman has certainly proved he's not a YES house monkey at this point, given Prospectus and his willingness to bash dumb Yankee moves on the YES site.

Murray Chass thinks Morneau was the MVP; nuff said.

Bill Weber (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Um house organ or not, every point Goldman makes in that article is pretty much spot on (except for the part about Morneau's year being in the top 200 for 1B ever.)

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 15:53 (seventeen years ago) link

also on Frank Thomas = statue (not one 1st-to-3rd on a single all year)

Bill Weber (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

somewhere Ryan Howard's like "whew"

nate p., Wednesday, 29 November 2006 16:59 (seventeen years ago) link

if only morneau had walked more ; (

deep space nine (deep space nine), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Or hit more home runs.

Or played an impressive first base.

Or did anything particularly exceptionally actually.

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:24 (seventeen years ago) link

But he's Canadian!

:D

David RER (Frank Fiore), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Oops I forgot that being Canadian was particularly exceptional!

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 21:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Wait wait I can totally 100% justify (or should that be Justin-fy) Morneau as MVP now, for reals, and then everyone will have to shut up about it forever:

Obviously one thing Sabermetrics and the naysayers don't take into account is localized position/franchise factor, which is like park factors only a lot more mysterious and unexplainable. The fact that Twins first basemen have rarely been better than league average has been in effect for the franchise since the earliest days of the Senators, with a few notable exceptions -- Killebrew and Carew, who didn't exclusively play the position anyways, and Kent Hrbek, who was a fairly decent power hitter for a brief stretch but in retrospect is not someone you'd trade, say, Jack Clark for. Aside from that you had the workaday likes of Joe Judge, Mickey Vernon and Joe Kuhel, flashes-in-the-pan like Rich Reese and Zeke Bonura, all-field-no-hit guys like Doug Mientkiewicz, and huge lumps of awful like Scott Stahoviak and Julio Becquer. If you don't believe me when I say that playing first for the Twins has a detrimental effect on a hitter's numbers, look at David Ortiz: playing first for the Twins, even sporadically, hindered his full potential. It is totally not a coincidence or attributable to managerial changes that his slugging percentage jumped 92 points once he signed with Boston.

So basically, hitting like Morneau did in 2006 with such an overwhelming localized position/franchise factor against him is like a player hitting .350/.430/.650 in 1968 or striking out 320 batters in 1919. If he played for the Indians or the Tigers nobody'd be calling his MVP candidacy a farce, because he would have singlehandedly won the Triple Crown.

nate p., Wednesday, 29 November 2006 22:52 (seventeen years ago) link

How can you win the Triple Crown as a group?

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 29 November 2006 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link

By "singlehandedly" I mean by holding the bat with one hand.

nate p., Wednesday, 29 November 2006 23:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha, all this time we've been bitching about Morneau when things are getting a lot more interesting in the NL MVP discussion.

nate p., Thursday, 30 November 2006 17:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Well he did get snubbed although most people think the big problem is that Pujols had a better year, not that his team made the playoffs. I don't really care too much about the playoff thing (although I generally think the team should be a contending one, unless a player has an absolutely historical year and there are no great candidates on a winning team.)

Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 30 November 2006 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

i would have voted for pujols but i'm totally fine with ryan howard. also, pujols is sort of a dick.

deep space nine (deep space nine), Thursday, 30 November 2006 18:34 (seventeen years ago) link

yes, being the obvious MVP and a dick oft goes together

Dr M (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 30 November 2006 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

Dr. Morbius for MVP.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 30 November 2006 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

:(

Dr M (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 30 November 2006 20:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Just funnin' ya.

jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 30 November 2006 20:19 (seventeen years ago) link

lol that exchange was awesome.

aidsy (aidsy), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link

four years pass...

Batista wuz robbed

/clemenzabait

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 14:39 (twelve years ago) link

Bait taken. If you want to argue that Ellsbury or Cabrera was robbed, sure--wouldn't agree, but they both had strong cases. Bautista, much less so, I think, and not primarily because of the Jays' fourth-place finish. The problem was that he did all his hitting in April and May; he was still getting on base the second half (.419), but he hit .257 and slugged .477.

clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2011 16:21 (twelve years ago) link

the whole season counts, you know

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 19:08 (twelve years ago) link

ie, doing all [sic] your hitting in April and May is not a problem

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 19:09 (twelve years ago) link

i think matt kemp got robbed!

cad, Monday, 28 November 2011 19:10 (twelve years ago) link

yeah, at least the legit #2 guy won tho

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 19:44 (twelve years ago) link

I think it is a problem, a big problem, if you do the bulk of your hitting in the first two months, and then go flat after the All-Star break or down the stretch. I just can't reconcile that with the idea that you were your league's most valuable player.

clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2011 20:38 (twelve years ago) link

but not if your bulk is in Aug/Sept, I take it.

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 21:14 (twelve years ago) link

No, that'd be a plus...Basically, I think it comes down to this: you're looking at this through the prism of something you know to be true--that all wins count equally in the standings (I can't argue that)--and I'm looking at it through the prism of something I strongly believe to be true, that there are many psychological factors involved over the course of a pennant race as to when you do most of your winning. I think it's something that could be easily studied. You chop up the season into three parts--Mar./April/May, June/July, Aug./Sept./Oct.--and come up with some way to see where the highest correlation is between winning games and winning pennants. Maybe there'd prove to be no difference, or maybe one of those parts would clearly have a higher correlation--maybe it'd be the first part, I don't know. But I think you'd have to actually study it.

clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2011 22:44 (twelve years ago) link

This is the best post-mortem I read, by somebody who would have voted for Bautista:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/cliff_corcoran/11/21/justin.verlander.al.mvp/index.html

From everything I read afterwards, the writers (non-voters, I guess) seemed perfectly okay with the Verlander pick, and were more bothered by Braun over Kemp.

clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2011 22:47 (twelve years ago) link

been done

xp

Dr Morbius, Monday, 28 November 2011 22:47 (twelve years ago) link

And? If you know of anything online, please point me to it...

clemenza, Monday, 28 November 2011 22:51 (twelve years ago) link

at first I was mad about Braun v. Kemp but I didnt notice that Braun had good steal #s and the main difference between their numbers were 'protection' and defense which nobody gives a shit about.. if the dummies at the bbwaa want to use playoff participation as a tie breaker than so be it, I guess..

mayor jingleberriez, Monday, 28 November 2011 22:54 (twelve years ago) link

wasn't close enough for a "tie"

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 13:01 (twelve years ago) link

I won't bother starting a new thread...This is sort of related: a handy guide to the question of "Who's the best player/pitcher in the game?" over the years:

(Player) http://highheatstats.blogspot.com/2011/12/baseball-behemoths-rolling-three-year.html

(Pitcher) http://highheatstats.blogspot.com/2011/12/baseball-behemoths-rolling-three-year_09.html

clemenza, Saturday, 10 December 2011 00:48 (twelve years ago) link

two weeks pass...

I'm still interested in that question I posed a few posts back, about whether late-season success disproportionately correlates to winning pennants, and whether that should factor into an MVP vote. So I took a break from wild gossipy horserace politics and sent a "Hey Bill" out today (fourth from the top temporarily, before it disappears behind the firewall):

http://www.billjamesonline.com/hey_bill/

He doesn't really come down one way or the other--a little bit in my direction, but not much.

clemenza, Friday, 30 December 2011 05:10 (twelve years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.