DMN's Evan Grant votes for Michael Young as AL MVP

Actually, He could probably stop all WAR if we just followed His path.

 

Tebow would have cured all of the baseball writers of obesity and alcoholism, so they would all have to vote for him.

 

So what are you saying, my friend? Dat Tebow is da next Ditka?

 

So if you had the best burgers of your life in Kansas City and Chicago and the third-best in Oakland, because you could eat the one from Oakland more often, it would be the best burger? You're voting for American League MVP. Just because you don't get to see Justin Verlander or Jacoby Ellsbury or Curtis Granderson as often as you get to see Michael Young doesn't mean that Michael Young is more valuable in the American League, only that's he's probably more valuable against the Oakland Athletics.

With that said, Susan, I appreciate your willingness to defend Evan. I just strongly disagree with your position on this matter.

 

That's what makes stats valuable - they are your eyes when you aren't looking. Otherwise, not only do A's get the first shot, and the AL west get the next best chance for your vote, but the rest of the league is being judged based on how they played against one team.

 

Maybe you just feel those burgers in Kansas City and Chicago were great, but you've only had one, so how do you know they are really great all the time?

I think it's natural to have more of a comfort level evaluating someone you see all the time. You have only stats on everyone else, but you have stats and intangible info about the guys you cover.

The thing about the BBWAA awards is that it's balanced so there are exactly two writers who cover every team who vote, so presumably all the "hometown" votes will cancel each other out.

That being said, I've had a change of heart recently, and I now believe the most valuable player is the player who helps his team win the most games. Period.

If he gets his team from 65 wins to 75 wins, that's the same thing as getting his team from 85 to 95. (It's not exactly the same thing, because of the "playoff pressure" factor, but I think that's overstated so I'd only use it as a tie-breaker, not a significant factor.)

Also, as for the voting requirements saying pitchers are included and also saying "games played" is a consideration, I think that basically opens the door for either interpretation to be valid. Personally, I feel pitchers should be included, but their performance should be weighted by the fact that they don't contribute to every game, which means it's harder for a pitcher to win the MVP, just the same way it's harder for a reliever to win the Cy Young.

 

Not if some voters responsibly don't give a hometown bump and others do.

 

I don't agree with Evan's decision, but the bottom line is each voter is given a blank ballot and asked to rank players from 1 to 10. Each voter has an opinion. What always puzzles me is why when we disagree with someone's opinion we have to question their intelligence or integrity.
The one place I can find fault is with the writer who refused to vote with Verlander. The MVP instructions specifically state that if you are not willing to consider pitchers you should decline the vote.

 

Regarding my vote: I really must apologize. ... to Susan Slusser.

I appreciate no end Susan coming on here and trying to rationally explain and defend my vote. I'm sorry she had to waste her time.

Let's be clear here: I stand by my vote. I voted for a guy who led his division-winning team in games played, who led his team in hitting and RBIs, who led the AL in close and late average and was third in RISP. Nothing else need really be said. It is not like I voted for a bench player. Had I, yeah, the vote should be looked at with question.

I voted for a guy who hit .338 and drove in 106 runs. In the previous 10 years, there had been nine others in the AL to reach both of those thresholds. Eight of them finished in the top four in the MVP voting and three of them won. None of those guys, however, were asked to fill the defending MVP's spot in the lineup for six weeks during the season, or to fill the cleanup spot for the majority of the season. Most folks will tell you Michael Young should be hitting in the No. 2 spot in the Rangers lineup. He had all of 10 at-bats in that spot in 2011. None of those other guys started 10 or more games at three different positions in the field, one of which (first base) he'd never played in his life before. Again, he filled in for Beltre for six weeks at third. He played first a significant amount when Mitch Moreland had tendinitis for the second half of the season. Many in the organization feel Ron Washington's confidence in Young to play second once every 10 days or so, gave Ian Kinsler the necessary rest to avoid the DL for the first time in his career.

No, he didn't rank in the top 10 in WAR or some of the advanced stats. A couple of years ago, I voted for the guy who ranked No. 2 in the AL in WAR as my MVP (Kevin Youkilis) and left a guy off my ballot entirely - inadvertently and quite stupidly, I might add - who ranked 12th in the AL in WAR (including position players) and ranked third on his own team behind Youkilis and Jon Lester. And I caught lots of outrage for it. That guy hit .326/.376/.493/.869 and was the tough-nosed team leader. Young this year: .338/.380/.474/.854 and was the tough-nosed ultra-versatile team leader ... My point: Is that it seems the arguments change from year to year. And you know what? That's fine. Because "value" in the BBWAA awards is not defined as the WAR value and has much more vague criteria, the criteria and the arguments for/against can change from year to year.

I'd also like to point out that the BBWAA ballot is a 10-person ballot. It allows for folks to have differing opinions on value without it strangely skewing the voting. It is why the BBWAA urges us to put thought into 1 through 10. Young got 14 points of my total 59 points for my first place vote. He got five more points than Verlander (second on my ballot). Had I voted Verlander first and Young second, not a soul in the world cries outrage. The difference between Young and Verlander on my ballot constituted 0.3 percent of the total points available. If you simply take my ballot out, the top 10 finishers remain in the exact order. If you replace my vote with those precious WAR finishers (using the baseball-reference.com top 10, including pitchers and giving the nod to position players in the cases of ties), the top 11 in the balloting remain exactly the same. Had I used WAR as my sole criteria, CC Sabathia would have moved up from 14th to 12th. Sorry about that, CC.

It's impossible to cover a team for a whole year and NOT pick up on nuances or subtle things that a player does to help his team. That is why every market gets equal representation and why there is room on the ballot to award players whose value may sometimes go beyond the common metrics. I value the statistical community, rooted in the "Moneyball" concept. But I also know that the Rangers were the absolute antithesis of the "Moneyball" concept. And yet they won. Again. It just shows you that stats don't mean everything. Sometimes there are exceptions. Michael Young, in my mind, was the exception.

I've got no issue with disagreeing with my ballot. I expect and welcome it because baseball and these awards are always full of great debate. But please, it's insulting to suggest that the ballot should not be taken seriously. Michael Young may not have been the MVP in a lot of your minds. But the guy was a legitimate candidate.

Thanks for the time.

Evan Grant

 

Thanks, Trace. I was so busy typing this Thanksgiving morning, that your comment popped in between starting and finishing of my long-winded note.

 

Oh, JC, now you're just posting to show you can be snarky to the name journalist. You're in the tank for OPS and WAR, we get that. That doesn't mean your way of looking at baseball is the only way to look at it.