The Most Valuable Player awards in both the American and National League are big question marks this year, with varied opinions on who is most deserving. Two people who watch a lot of baseball – Kevin Baxter, who covers the Angels for the Los Angeles Times, and Joe Castiglione, the longtime radio play-by-play voice of the Red Sox – weighed in with theirs prior to Game 4 of the ALDS at Fenway Park. (On the subject of postseason awards, you can weigh in yourself in the balloting for the 2008 Internet Baseball Awards through Friday.)
Castiglioneon who should be the American League MVP: “I’d vote for Pedroia if I had a vote, although Youkilis is certainly a great candidate, too. And I’m afraid they might split the votes. But Pedroia, other than a little dip in early May, he sustained it all year. He comes to play every day, and he plays the great defense at second base to stop so many rallies; he turns double plays. And he’s had so many big hits. You have to look at the extra-base hits, although he and Youk are about the same. He has the 54 doubles, the runs scored, and you mix in the stolen bases, 20 out of 21. Runs scored is a very important stat; yes, I know that part of it is Youk hitting behind him. But I think the energy (Pedroia) brings is important, and he’s hit something like .374 since mid June.”
Castiglione on who, other than Pedroia or Youkilis, is most deserving of the award: “Earlier, I thought K-Rod might get more consideration, but I don’t think so. They won, and he shouldn’t be the victim of them winning 100 games, and 62 saves is a big plus, but I’m not a big believer in the save rule because you get a lot of cheap saves. Morneau got the Twins back in the race with his RBIs; he had such a large percentage of his team’s RBIs. To me, he would be the non-Red Sox guy who would be up there.”
Castiglione on who should be the National League MVP: “I don’t know if Manny has been there long enough. There’s Ryan Howard, with all the home runs and RBIs. I might lean toward Sabathia, even though he was only there half the year, with the 11-2. Pujols probably gets penalized because the Cardinals weren’t a playoff team. I haven’t studied his numbers that closely, but I know they’re very good. I guess I don’t have strong convictions about the National League MVP at this point. If it went Howard’s way, you could justify it. If it went Pujols way, you could justify it.”
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Baxter on who should be the American League MVP: “I think you have to look at the teams that actually made the postseason. You have Dustin Pedroia, who led the league in runs scored for the Red Sox and was second in hitting. He was a big part of their offense. And there’s Kevin Youkilis, who after Manny left, really solidified the middle of that lineup. I think those are two guys you have to look at. I do think, too, that there are going to be some votes for Francisco Rodriguez, but a guy who comes in and pitches an inning three or four times a week, I don’t think is nearly as valuable as a guy who plays every day. For that reason, one more guy who might get some votes is Carlos Quentin of the White Sox. Despite missing the last several weeks of the season, he was still leading the league in home runs going into the last week of the season. The White Sox would not have gone as far as they did without him.”
Baxter on if Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau merits strong consideration the AL MVP award: “They had good seasons, with Mauer leading the league in hitting, but the Twins were a team that were sort of just hanging around and made a push late, mainly because the White Sox fell apart, actually, when Carlos Quentin got hurt. I think they’re going to get a lot of support, definitely, and they belong in the top five, but I don’t think they meant as much to their team, and to the pennant race, as those other guys did. If I had to pick one, I think I would pick Pedroia, just because of what he meant to that team. He had 20 stolen bases as well, and he gave Terry Francona a lot of options offensively. He also played great defensively. So, he would be my vote if I had to pick one, but there are five or six guys that are deserving of the award.”
Baxter on who should be the National League MVP: “It sounds like a lot of the early support has gone to Albert Pujols, who had just a fantastic season. But the fact that his team kind of hung out at the back end of the pennant race for a long time, and really didn’t make the push in September that everyone was expecting – his numbers are great, but the award isn’t for the guy with the best numbers; it’s for the guy who is most valuable. You might want to look at a guy like David Wright in New York; he certainly had a great season. But if you want to talk about which team would not have made the playoffs without Player X, it would be the Dodgers and Manny Ramirez. I know he was only there for seven weeks, but the Dodgers would not have made the playoffs without him. He was definitely the most valuable player in getting a team to the postseason, so I think that Manny Ramirez should probably win it.”
Wow, not even a single mention of Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay. Baxter doesn't surprise me at all (Angels coverage is generally lamentable), but Castiglione watches a good, well-assembled team (as opposed to a team that succeeds primiarily through blind luck) - you'd think he'd understand the game more.
The guy with the best numbers is basically the most valuable. You can't isolate a certain player and say a certain team wouldn't have made the playoffs without that player. Sure, without Manny the Dodgers aren't in the playoffs, but without Braun the Brewers are out, without Utley the Phillies are out, and without Pujols the Cards would never have been close.
"I haven't studied his numbers closely." Shouldn't that disqualify the guy from voting? It's tantamount to saying "I'm not planning to do a good job of this."
“I think you have to look at the teams that actually made the postseason."
Must... resist... gouging... eyes... out... with... forkkkkkkkkk!!
[David Laurila, that is mean baiting your loyal readers so obviously]
Being a factor in helping your team make the post-season should be a major component of MVP voting- not the only one, but a big one. When choosing between Youkilis and Morneau (who are roughly similar players) or Kinsler and Pedroia, you give an edge to Youk/Ped. When you have big differences in stats, however, like Pujols and Howard, the statistical difference is large enough to carry the day. It's not totally fair, because some of this is dependent on teammates, but who said anything is totally fair.
Exhibits A and B on why you should ignore these awards. Baxter is looking at the standings then maybe considering player performance. Taking seven weeks of Manny over six months of Pujols is absurd, and I cordially invite Baxter to any Scoresheet or fantasy league I'm playing in with money on the line.
Its weird to see MSM on this site. It should not be a surprise to see that both of their opinions take into account the pennant races more than anything. Baxter was a pretty terrible writer when he used to write for the Miami Herald when I was growing up. It is no surprise that he would write something as naive as "the award isnt for the guy with the best numbers; its the guy who is most valuable." It is too bad that we still have to be subjected to terrible journalism.
BillJohnson, Castiglione doesn't have a vote for MVP, and he says so in the first sentence above. It is the Baseball WRITERS Association of America, after all, which doesn't include broadcasters (for better or worse).
Wow. These guys really are the mouthpieces of mainstream media.
How anyone can possibly *still* believe a player's awards credentials should be based on his teammates' performance is beyond me. It's like the writers fall in love with a player (*cough* Howard/Morneau *cough*), then anoint them MVP when their teams make the playoffs.
"[T]he award isn’t for the guy with the best numbers; it’s for the guy who is most valuable." Is it any wonder the wrong guy gets the award so often? My word. I'm reminded of Jimmy Dykes' oft-cited line about Banks being the MVP because without him the Cubs would finish in Albuquerque. Where are the Cardinals this year without Pujols? Trade him and Howard straight-up and the Phillies still make the playoffs (more easily) and the Cardinals still miss and don't hang around as long (not least because Howard was garbage for months). They shouldn't even be compared.
A guy who blows off Tommy John surgery so that he can help his team while mashing as good or better than anybody else and playing his position in the field as well as anyone seems pretty damn valuable to me! Postseason or not,
I come to BP to learn about baseball, and I can't do that reading/listening to MSM bozos. I can understand BP expanding its journalistic base to include opinions from other sources; but please don't do it by polluting your fine product with garbage I can readily get (and choose to avoid) from the paper or TV.
I feel this is overly critical of BP. First, this is in the unfiltered section suggesting that it is a quick thought by whomever and not a researched article. Next, there is a logic in asking two frequent/constant watchers of two playoff teams in a series what they think. Yes, their views on MVP are misguided. But if anything, I applaud BP for not presenting this in a patronizing form. If any mainstream analysis is going to be introduced to advanced thinking it is going to start with invitation of thought and respectful dissent, not buy going Fire Joe Morgan on them and polarizing their thinking.
Castiglione sounds like he didn't watch a single NL game all year. Not that I'd be surprised. I do like the way he pronounces the "ch" in "champagne" though.
David - this was close to what I wrote to you about regarding getting the opinion of non-analytical types, but I was hoping for something in the player sphere - as has already been mentioned here, many of us already know what/how these guys think.
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Exactly how many meaningful games did Pujols play in this year? Nice numbers in garbage time but he hardly won anything for anybody. Howard had a big game to play everyday down the stretch.
Perhaps Ryan Howard's .797 OPS and .314 OBP from the beginning of the season through August 24 is a large part of the reason Ryan Howard was playing meaningful games in late September.
Let's say though that you do want to look for is the player whose performance made the biggest difference in a team making the playoffs. i.e., say, taking a team that made the playoffs and figure out how likely they would have been to do so without that player. I don't think this is what one should do, but it seems to be something like what mainstream baseball writers care about. If that is your criteria, isn't Chase Utley clearly the NL MVP?
You'd think that with Bill James' association with the Red Sox, Joe C would via osmosis, become "more" than just another mainstream media type. Morneau? Please. Haven't we seen that movie before. Value is pretty simple--knowing what you know about the season each player has had, if you put them all in a pool and started picking players for a team, who would you pick first. While Mauer might not be picked first, only a moron would pick Morneau over Mauer. It's called Positional Scarcity and each media type should attend a seminar on it.
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I expcet more from Castiglione. Ryan Howard over Pujols?, Morneau over Mauer? Come on.