MLB Idol

After a short break, we return to the regular programme schedule....

With the actual awards based on merit; Silver Slugger and Cy Young, out of the way we now head on to the popularity contest that is the MVP.

To clarify for the uninformed, the MVP should be by definition be given to a player, who in comparison with his team mates has stood out across the MLB as the Most Valuable Player, i.e the team would not have been anywhere near where they ended up without said player. Also, it is not supposed to include post season feats, regardless what a bitter Albert Pujols said in 2006 when he lead the Cards to the playoffs but still lost out to Phillies' Ryan Howard who was spending October on the couch.

I see it this way: Someone who doesn't take his team to the playoffs doesn't deserve to win the MVP - Pujols, November 2006

"You have to consider everything. You have to put all the numbers together" - Pujols, November 2008

Way to turn the coat Albert. Now, don't get me wrong. Based on the context that only regular season feats playing part in the decision, both choices were correct. Pujols is a maginificent player, and his .357 with 37 home runs and 116 RBIs was head and shoulders above anyone else on the Cardinals and he carried, on a dodgy elbow, the team for most of the season.

However, it still raises issues about how the selection process is made. Just consider these figures for a second:

AB H HR BA OPS SB
546 173 50 .317 1.091 5

AB H HR BA OPS SB
550 165 39 .300 .963 11

Here's a hint - the second line, clearly inferior to the first one was awarded the AL MVP in 1995. The first line belongs to the Indians' former slugger Albert Belle, generally considered among sportswriters (as in the people voting for the MVP) as one of the surliest jack-asses in baseball. The second line belongs to Mo Vaughn, an mountain of a man (towards the end of his career a completely immobile mountain of a man) and a very genial man in dealing with the press.

Buster Olney of ESPN once wrote about Albert Belle:

It was a taken in baseball circles that Albert Belle was nuts... The Indians billed him $10,000 a year for the damage he caused in clubhouses on the road and at home, and tolerated his behavior only because he was an awesome slugger... He slurped coffee constantly and seemed to be on a perpetual caffeinated frenzy. Few escaped his anger: on some days he would destroy the postgame buffet...launching plates into the shower... after one poor at-bat against Boston, he retreated to the visitor's clubhouse and took a bat to teammate Kenny Lofton's boombox. Belle preferred to have the clubhouse cold, below 60 degrees, and when one chilly teammate turned up the heat, Belle walked over, turned down the thermostat, and smashed it with his bat. His nickname, thereafter, was "Mr. Freeze."

When Belle retired, the NY Daily News' Bill Madden wrote:

Sorry, there'll be no words of sympathy here for Albert Belle. He was a surly jerk before he got hurt and now he's a hurt surly jerk....He was no credit to the game. Belle's boorish behavior should be remembered by every member of the Baseball Writers' Association when it comes time to consider him for the Hall of Fame.

Hold on for a second...shouldn't the MVP be given to the best player, not the most friendly good player? NY Times writer Robert Lipsyte agreed:

Madden is basically saying, 'He was not nice to me, so let's screw him.' Sportswriters anoint heroes in basically the same way you have crushes in junior high school... you've got someone like Albert Belle, who is somehow basically ungrateful for this enormous opportunity to play this game. If he's going to appear to us as a surly asshole, then we'll cover him that way. And then, of course, he's not gonna talk to us anymore—it's self-fulfilling.

This is one of the two fundamental flaws in the voting process. It simply becomes a popularity contest. In 1947 the Red Sox splendid splinter Ted Williams, who was no friend of the 4th Republic, lost to the friendly Hollywood Yankee Joe DiMaggio, despite Williams winning the Triple Crown.

Williams numbers; .343, 32 home runs and 125 RBIs were far superior to DiMaggio's .315 with 20 home runs and 97 RBI, but one writer left Williams off the ballot completely after a clash with Williams, thus allowing DiMaggio to win the MVP by one point.

The second issue normally affects the top teams. A team cannot win 90+ games by having just one great player. Therefore teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees sometimes lose out on MVPs because other players "splinter" the vote.

This year it seems the 4 front runners for the AL MVP come from two teams; Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis from the Red Sox and Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer from the Twins. An outsider with a considerable shot is Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez, who of course set a new single season record with 62 saves (but in the process lowered his strike outs to a career low 77 since becoming the closer in 2002 and had a not too impressive 2.24 ERA).

The announcement is made later today. Now we wait.