the recent dumb dumb MVP results (cont.)

Batista wuz robbed

/clemenzabait

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.

the whole season counts, you know

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

i think matt kemp got robbed!

yeah, at least the legit #2 guy won tho

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.

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

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.

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.

been done

xp

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

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..

wasn't close enough for a "tie"

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

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.