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Just a brain fart. I have to believe the writer meant Longoria but wrote down Bartlett. It makes more sense than an actual vote for Bartlett. What do the ballots look like, anyway? Where's Nate Silver?
Has someone ever gotten votes in both leagues before?
Maybe McGwire in '97? Anyone bother to check?
Apparently catchers have to be Yankees to win.
Pudge in '99...
The flip side is he's a good, not great defensive player, he's not particularly fast and he doesn't draw lots of walks. It seems tough to consider a singles/doubles hitter with minimal speed and OK defense as "great." There is probably a positional adjustment to be made in his favor though.
ROY:
Pedroia - 1
David Wright - 0
MVPs:
Pedroia - 1 (so far...)
David Wright - 0
Case closed.
fixed.
Tom, a few years ago I had used Green in an intro and Jeff googlommed it. He wrote to me about Greens wild career arch and mentioned he was a big baseball fan (I think we had yapped about it at Maxwells also)...and I'm pretty sure he said he was coming on board.
he's not fast, but he did steal 20 bases and was only caught once, which is pretty impressive (and perhaps adds a little something to his offensive value)
To be fair Willie hit .326 that year, had 230 hits, stole 79/89 bases, scored 133 runs, and hit 15 triples. Not too shabby.
Aramis Ramirez won the NL Hank Aaron Award this year, so it's fairly apparent that we should be paying no attention to it.
The execution sucks, as with many awards. There's nothing wrong with the concept.
Lee 8th in the league in win shares, Halladay 16th.
I wish the MVP was only for position players. Just too hard to compare.
I bet it's not very fruitful for him to Google "Green."
His work here is done.
1986: Red Sox, Yankee, Red Sox, Blue Jay, Blue Jay
1983: Oriole, Oriole, and next three players were all originally members of Red Sox
1968: Tiger, Tiger, Red Sox, Tiger
1966: Oriole, Oriole, Oriole, Twin, Twin, Twin
Here we go...
1956: Yankee, Yankee, Tiger, Tiger
For super-duper trivia bonus points, name the players above without looking them up.
Phredbird, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see.
Yes, Phredbird, Kevin is posting. His posts exist as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the threads and all the game chatters to catch Kevin, but even if you did not see him, what would that prove?
Are posts 106 and 113 real? Ah, Phredbird, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Kevin! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand diatribes from now, Phredbird, nay 10 times 10,000 diatribes from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. And Jeter blows.
Randomly click your way to 1980. It's allready been posted...
1956: Yankee, Yankee, Tiger, Tiger
For super-duper trivia bonus points, name the players above without looking them up.
I'm going to guess that the latter two are Jim Bunning and Harry Bright. You know that old poem, "Tiger, Tiger..."
On the contrary, it's likely that they're not the same guys.
McLain, Horton, Yaz, Freehan.
(Looks up answer. Got the Tigers right but flipped Horton & Freehan. Wrong Red Sox player. Kicks nine-year-old self for not paying more attention. Thinks, stupid voters, Yaz was way better that year.)
My gut tells me that Morneau is more valuable than Mauer, but who else would be a better pick than one of them and Pedroia? Well, Sizemore for one, and Cliff Lee for another. 10th and 12th! They both got jobbed. But any one of the 5 is probably an OK pick. Youkilis, OTOH, I don't get at all.
Super-duper would be right. 1966 would be Frank and Brooks, and Kaat, Killebrew and Oliva??? Dunno about that 3rd O, however. Boog?
Youks hit .312/.390/.569, a 143 OPS+
Youkilis had better averages and more home run power. Morneau had 90 more PA and higher R/RBI totals. Both play a pretty nice defense at first base, though Youkilis stepped in at 3B when Lowell went down. IMHO neither is a great candidate for the MVP, but I'd give Youkilis the nod for his higher averages and greater defensive versatility. Both players mean the world to their respective teams.
There was talk about it back in September, likely from a Rays beat writer. Imagine that is also where the vote originated.
Mickey, Yogi, Kaline, Kuenn?
Cal and Eddie. Ah, those were good times. I assume two of the next 3 were Rice and Lynn.
Bartlett was named the team MVP, IIRC by the beat writers.
It's not *that* far-fetched an idea. If this were still the late 40s/early 50s, when players whose value was mostly on the defensive side of the ball were getting MVP votes, Bartlett would have gotten a few more votes. Even well into the 1960s, such players were getting on ballots.
-- MWE
-- MWE
Agreed.
Also agreed. If a pitcher saves as many runs as position players create/save with their hitting/fielding, why shouldn't they be considered?
I dunno. The first comparison that came to mind was Barry Larkin, but I'm not sure if it "works".
I had Lee-Halladay-Mauer-Pedroia-Mo Rivera in the top five, and am surprised to find out I wasn't the only one with two pitchers leading.
kevin will be all around in the dark. kevin will be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, kevin will be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, kevin will be there. kevin will be in the way guys yell when they're mad - kevin will be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - kevin will be there, too.
Above average may be a little bit short but the former is probably a decent description. Overall, he looks like a good to very good player. He's a career .313 hitter with good power, very few K's, and low walk totals. On defense, he's been well above average in each of the past 2 years. He's also only 24, so if this is his career year, he'll likely have a few more close to it before coming down.
Larkin seems a lot more athletic than Pedrioa and probably aged better than the little guy will. Rod Carew's numbers are decent match, but he had way more speed. Pete Rose? Paul Molitor? Ray Durham? (I know these are HOF and HOVG types, but I'm thinking of similar types of early careers.)
Reminds of the end of the Seinfeld where you see George eating alone ot the non-Monk's coffee shop.
There's no window that can be opened wide enough for that one. ;-)
. G . AB . R .. H .2B 3B HR RBI SB CS . BB SO .. BA OBP SLG SH SF IBB HBP GDP
157 653 118 213 54 2 17 . 83 . 20 .1 . 50 52 .326 .376 .493 . 7 9 .. 1 ... 7 . 17
159 607 113 177 41 4 33 104 . 14 .2 .64 104 .292 .380 .535 . 1 8 . 14 .27 .. 9
Chase Utley is the new Joe Morgan.
Tom, I don't see the point of the comparison when they were competing against different players in their respective MVP awards. Just because the garden gnome had the best year in the AL, with a similar stat line to Utley, it doesn't mean their weren't 7-8 (arguably) better seasons than Utley in the NL.
But my MAIN point is that Utley is the 2nd best player in major league baseball (MABYE A-Rod could bump him down to 3rd), and nobody in the media seems to recognize it. It's worse than when Boggs and Raines were at the top of their games in the mid-late 80s and got trashed in MVP voting every year. It's a case of Joe Morgan-itis. Morgan was The Best Player on the Cincinnati Reds EVERY SINGLE YEAR from 1972-77 - on a team with multiple huge stars - but the credit often went to Bench and Rose and Perez.
Utley has his teammates win MVP awards while he carries the club on his shoulders.
And not to mention the two top starters.
I especially don't understand Mauer's lack of support. Sizemore wasn't significantly better than the top playoff candidates. Rodriguez did live down to his unclutchy rep.
But Mauer had almost EVERYTHING you think the BBWAA would love. The batting average! The clutchy stats! (.904 OPS in September! .914 OPS w/ RISP! .950 OPS w/ 2 out & RISP! .982 OPS Late and close!!) Premium defense from a premium position! Heck, if you're fond of narratives you could even give Mauer extra-credit for the pitching staff overperforming expectations.
The fact it went to Pedroia and not Morneau or Youkilis is obviously a point in favour of the ship of fools. Pedroia was probably one of the five or six most valuable players in the AL this year. But I don't think we can say the BBWAA got it "right". Let's call it 5* for 6. (Who cares about the manager awards?)
*And even personally I'd have voted Halladay over Lee because of their workloads and schedules.
Mauer's problem is that his local MSM has decided that Morneau is THE MAN, and accordingly run down Mauer- if your local press corps denigrates you- are the non-locals likely to take up your cause?
Is TomH a pseudonym for Dave Cameron?
I wonder if the inconsistency of Utley's year, however, should count against him. (Obviously, if he'd had his April/March in September/October the voters would have stormed to give him the MVP.) But is hitting 1.200 one month and .850 the rest of the year as valuable as hitting .900 all season?
Is hitting 1.274 one month and .775 the rest of the year more valuable than hitting .881 all season?
Generally speaking when you see a .900 season that player did not hit .900 every month, maybe month by month you'd see: .800, .975, .850, .875, .975... with wider month by month swings not being unusual.
Whoa--the Twin Cities media run Mauer down? Wow. You'd think they'd love him to death being a local boy and all. Is he not meeting expectations in some way?
Wasn't the question, Is hitting 1.274 one month and .775 the rest of the year more valuable than hitting 1.115 all season?
"run down" is a bit strong- they see him as good- not great- a supporting player- not the star- Morneau is the star- the man who drives the team, the man who gets the ribbie when you need the ribbie (ignoring the fact that it's generally Mauer he's driving in...)
When asked how can they value Morneau over Mauer- they generally say 2 things
1: If you watched the Twins every day...*
2: Mauer has no power.
* don't you hate it when someone says "If you watched so and so every day"- I'll do it too WRT Mets, and to a lesser extent the Yankees. It's a lazy way of saying "that's my opinion and my mind's closed- and my opinion counts for more than your's because I watched the games"
Pick 10 fans of one team at random, ask each about specific playing attributes of 5 guys on that team- don't let them hear each other's responses- you will hear different things- but the majority opinion will likely be the most correct (wisdom of the crowds effect)- let them discuss amongst themselves and a group think consensus will emerge- which may or may not be the pre- discussion consensus- what happens is the loudest and most persuasive PERSON will tend to prevail- and even if that person is totally wrongheaded- his opinion stands a good chance as emerging as the group's opinions.
Maybe they just find it endearing the way Justin says "a-boot".
I think it's really an ingrained habit of people who have been covering baseball for 20 years or more - I've been reading a collection of Roger Angell's columns from the early 80s, and what strikes me is how little baseball he got to watch, and how he assumed that this was just how it worked. He frequently mentions hearing about, say, the Expos having a good season, and then going to Montreal to see for himself. That's just how it was.
Veteran baseball writers seem to still be working under the impression that they have a priviledged exposure to the game, not realizing that thanks to cable, sattelite, the internet, what have you, your average Joe Fan has seen as much baseball as the most entrenched beat writer.
Good grief.
The Family Guy?
Best Regards
John
This sounds true. And I also agree that Joe isn't being run down so much as Justin is being built up. It's a lot of power, RBIs and other photogenic stuff contrasted with the quiet steady local kid angle. If they were both in Texas, for example, I think Mauer might actually do better since there wouldn't be the insipid "Aw shucks a local boy can't possibly be the best" pablum that midwestern flyover folks sometimes mire themselves in. But mostly it's singles vs home runs.
Let's assume Utley played the whole season and the numbers unequivocally show he was better than Pujols in '07. So Utley's best is (probably) better than Pujols' worst? OK.
But going forward?
Here's the thing. Both are very good baserunners. Both are very good defenders at their position. So you're saying the fact Utley plays 2nd base (might) make up for Pujols' dramatic advantage at the plate? So unless we've seen the end of the 1.100+ OPS Pujols, that doesn't make sense to me. (Unless I'm dramatically misunderstanding positional adjustments, and 2nd base is a lot harder than we tend to give it credit for--my gut actually says it's a little easier.)
I think you've just turned Utley into the most overrated player in the game.
While Sir Albert is good at those things, Utley is clearly better. Enough to gain a run or two on the basepaths and more than a few with the glove.
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