Dustin Pedroia wins AL MVP

Underwhelming pick, underwhelming candidates.

 

Apparently, he went on WEEI to explain his decision about Pedroia and -- big shock -- they ripped him nonstop. A Red Sox player just wins the MVP, but rather than just celebrate that, they have to track down and destroy one writer for one omission. They acted as if this omission cheated Pedoia of happiness.

Something tells me Twins fans aren't tracking down whoever it was who omitted Joe Mauer from his ballot to tear him apart.

 

I'm sorry, it's not overboard in the least.

This, to me, is the same as a Hall of Fame voter giving Jim Deshaies a vote. You've got one of two options with this person.

1. He is absolutely clueless.
2. He turned in a "look at me" vote.

Either is worth someone losing his vote.

 

How? Numbers back the 11 guys I threw out there and his reasoning did the same thing.
He said his last-place vote came down to Pena and Pedroia and he said he couldn't see having a 96-win team without a player on the ballot. The other nine guys he put down were statistically as good, if not better, than Pedroia.

 

Rhody, this guy is one of those who goes way beyond numbers. He was the catalyst for the second-best team in the American League; the best team did not have a defining player, unless it was Longoria.

I can see somebody thinking Youkilis was more valuable than Pedroia. I cannot see Pedroia not being in the top three, let alone the top 10.

Incidentally, I missed who didn't put Ryan Howard in his top 10 in the NL. Whomever ... he should be gone, too.

 

All of this is, of course, your (not so) humble opinion. Which is worth just about as much as that of Evan Grant. Especially since you use vague intangibles, such as ``catalyst'' rather than numbers to back it up. Perhaps he didn't see the same intangibles you did. Perhaps he saw Youkilis as the team's catalyst.

Just because his assessment of the field doesn't match yours -- or even every other voter's, for that matter -- doesn't mean he should lose his vote. Especially since he's been doing this for quite some time and probably has some idea how all this works.

 

Why, aren't you fawning.

Mr. Grant's shoes are over there in the corner, joe. :

 

Sorry, but not having a guy with stats inferior to Ian Kinsler should not constitute stripping him of his vote. You going to strip the vote from whoever backed Jason Bartlett, too? Where do you stop?

 

No, I was merely pointing out that disagreement does not always mean the other guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.


The thing is, you might be right that Pedroia was the team's catalyst. But since there's no way to objectively prove that, you can't very well blast someone for being an incompetent egomaniac merely for not seeing it the same way.

 

Between this and the Hall, I'd keep going a lot further than you obviously would, Oz.

I'm not so sure the baseball writers should be doing the voting for this anyway.

 

The HOF is one thing, I would absolutely crack down on people who don't get it. But an MVP vote, not so sure. As for sports reporters voting on it, I'm not sure how else to do it. Players have their own biases, as do the fans, as would anyone else. It's just a different set of biases, but the same problems.

 

Get down off the ivory tower, Rhody. Every team has fans. Fans cannot be expected to make perfect sense one-hundred percent---after all, the word is fanatic. And I'm sure you don't make complete sense all of the time, so let's save the righteous "I'm better than most Red Sox fans" bullshit, eh?

I understand that there are fanbois out there, but I don't understand why there's so much hatred for them on this site. You know, many of those fanbois buy newspapers and purchase online subscriptions and count as unique visitors. Instead, though, you consider your opinion to be of greater value than a vast majority of a population you say you belong to.

And you complain about not earning a halfway decent paycheck? Maybe you should think about how your distaste for "Red Sox fans" is expressed to your customers, some of whom, I assume, are "Red Sox fans."

And that goes for every team, be it Yankees, Twins, Red Sox or the Staten Island Yankees.