From the BBWAA:
Joe Mauer, who won an unprecedented third batting championship for a catcher and helped propel the Minnesota Twins to the American League Central title, was elected the AL Most Valuable Player for 2009 in balloting by the BBWAA.
Mauer, the first catcher to lead his league in batting average (.365), on-base percentage (.444) and slugging (.587) in the same season, was listed first on all but one of the 28 ballots cast by two writers in each league city. He was second on that other ballot to score a total of 387 points, based on a tabulation system rewarding 14 points for first place, nine for second, eight for third on down to one for 10th.
The top 10: Mauer, Tex, Jeter, Cabrera, Morales, Youkilis, Bay, Zobrist, Ichiro, A-Rod. I have a whole load of observations, so buckle in:
- Just so you know where I am coming from, this was my final ballot: Mauer, Jeter, Greinke, Zobrist, Youkilis, Teixeira, Longoria, Hernandez, Cabrera, Rodriguez. Next 5: Figgins, Halladay, Verlander, Crawford, Ichiro.
- Mauer deserved the award, and it should have been unanimous. Miguel Cabrera getting a first place vote is positively ridiculous, when it could be reasonably argued that he was not the most valuable player on his own team.
- Let’s see if I get the logic here. The MVP is about value to your team, and therefore stats are not the be all end all, and winners should be rewarded. Then why not vote for pitchers? They help teams win, they provide “value” in that sense as well. If it is an award for hitters, then it should be about the numbers.
- Jeter should have finished 2nd. He was 2.3 wins more valuable than Tex, a huge spread. The voters clearly do not understand positional adjustments, nor can they see past home runs or RBI’s as evaluation tools. Some have suggested that the voters are getting smarter, but I am not so sure. I think we are just seeing the effects of the buzz changing. Writers vote based on buzz, and the sabermetric community has loudly helped shaped the buzz this season. However, that buzz generally deals with who finishes first, so we see Mauer rightfully win the award while Jeter gets screwed out of 2nd place.
- How can a pitcher who got 0 Cy Young votes (Rivera) finish ahead of the Cy Young winner?
- Ben Zobrist was way too low. His old school numbers are great, and the saber stats show him to be a top 5 candidate. He did not receive a single top 5 vote.
- Kendry Morales and Jayson Bay are too high. Bay was good for 3 months, as was Morales.
- A-Rod deserved his 10th place finish, but did not deserve the 3rd place vote he got. He was the 3rd most valuable player on his own team.
- I love Robbie Cano, but he should not have gotten votes.
- Evan Longoria barely got any recognition for his excellent season.
- Overall, Too high: Tex, Cabrera, Morales, Bay, Ichiro. Too low: Jeter, Greinke, Zobrist, Longoria, Felix, Verlander, Halladay
Related posts:
These are the same media guys who use faulty grammar mistakes (in a JOURNALISM CAREER no less) ranging from
split infinitives (I want to boldly go where no man has gone before… vs to go boldly)
subject verb disagreement (A player should handle their own… a player should handle his/her own…)
misuse of subjunctive mood (If I was… if I were)
etc….
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Moshe – Pretty much nodded through this whole post.
I very much agree about the “buzz” aspect, which both Greinke and Mauer had very early on this year (later for Mauer, obviously). The sabermetric community (especially guys like Neyer and Posnanski) helped shape that thanks to the increasingly large role the internet is playing in sports writing. Both of those guys have a larger readership than most small and medium sized newspaper writers. But I think you’re right about it not extending past the award winner.
The only reason I think Mo got some MVP recognition is that voters see relief pitchers as closer to everyday players since they impact more games. Of course that doesn’t show up in the Cy Young voting, but for whatever reason, it seems to in the MVP. Mo has placed in the MVP vote 5 times without doing so in the Cy Young.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Yeah, that’s a great point. Stupid by the writers (as the starter has a lot greater impact on his games than the closer has on his), but definitely dead on.
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Teixeira finishing 2nd has to be a joke. I’d take Jeter and ARod over him in the voting, and that’s just in his own infield. Mauer, Zobrist, Longoria, Miggy all had better collective seasons, and Youklis could also be argued.
I wanted the Yankees to sign this guy badly in the off-season, but it only took 1 year for Teixeira to finish far too high in MVP balloting, and become somewhat overrated. I had him at the bottom of my ballot. MVP candidate? Ha.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Well, it depends how much faith you put in UZR. If the answer is not a ton, then you can make a strong case for Tex after Mauer, Zobrist, and Jeter in terms of hitters.
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The other Chris H Reply:
November 24th, 2009 at 1:10 am
I actually think you have to look at each individual defensive and range stat along side UZR and what you see on the field and use the 3 together to come up with who is and who isn’t goof at defense because I think UZR does over look some key things when judging someones “range”.
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I would have voted
Mauer
Arod
Figgins
Mariano Rivera
Youkilis
Derek Jeter
Ichiro
Tex
Cabrera
However my criteria isn’t numbers related it’s who I think is actually more valuable to their team because that is the name of the award.
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JW12 Reply:
November 24th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I would put Ichiro higher if I was using your criteria.
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