I particularly enjoyed the last question of this very serious interview. Good times.
Well, it's official. Jayson Stark is an idiot. His argument as to why Alex Rodriguez doesn't deserve the AL MVP this year seems to boil down to two points: His team would have finished last with or without him, and most previous MVPs have played for winning teams.
First for the idea that ARod wasn't valuable because his team finished last. So what? There are 25 players on a baseball team at any one time. Texas was a poor team because the other 24 guys weren't good. Without ARod, they would haver lost about 100 games, instead of 91. Either way they'd still be in last place, but if Stark thinks there isn't a difference, then it's obvious why he writes about sports and doesn't play them.
Most previous MVPs have played for teams that won more games than they lost, and I imagine most of those teams made it to the postseason. This is supposed to prove that the MVP has to come from one of those teams, because that's the way it's been implicitly defined all along. There are a number of problems with this. Of course most MVPs have played for good teams, the fact that they are so good makes the likelihood of their team winning greater, and well-run teams tend to win and are better at spotting and bringing in great players. It's largely a question of where you tend to find great players, more than anything else, that drives the correlation. Besides, there have been MVPs from lesser teams, so obviously the MVP voters haven't always looked at the award the way Stark demands we all must.
At one point he compares ARod's numbers after July 1 to David Ortiz's for the same period. The implication seems to be, whatever happened before then doesn't matter, and and let's ignore position played, defense, and base running too. David Ortiz was great for the Red Sox and deserved some recognition for what he did, but he isn't nearly the player ARod is. This year the voters got it right, ARod was easily the most valuable player in the league. Here's a complete rundown of the voting.
Well, it's official. Jayson Stark is an idiot. His argument as to why Alex Rodriguez doesn't deserve the AL MVP this year seems to boil down to two points: His team would have finished last with or without him, and most previous MVPs have played for winning teams.
First for the idea that ARod wasn't valuable because his team finished last. So what? There are 25 players on a baseball team at any one time. Texas was a poor team because the other 24 guys weren't good. Without ARod, they would haver lost about 100 games, instead of 91. Either way they'd still be in last place, but if Stark thinks there isn't a difference, then it's obvious why he writes about sports and doesn't play them.
Most previous MVPs have played for teams that won more games than they lost, and I imagine most of those teams made it to the postseason. This is supposed to prove that the MVP has to come from one of those teams, because that's the way it's been implicitly defined all along. There are a number of problems with this. Of course most MVPs have played for good teams, the fact that they are so good makes the likelihood of their team winning greater, and well-run teams tend to win and are better at spotting and bringing in great players. It's largely a question of where you tend to find great players, more than anything else, that drives the correlation. Besides, there have been MVPs from lesser teams, so obviously the MVP voters haven't always looked at the award the way Stark demands we all must.
At one point he compares ARod's numbers after July 1 to David Ortiz's for the same period. The implication seems to be, whatever happened before then doesn't matter, and and let's ignore position played, defense, and base running too. David Ortiz was great for the Red Sox and deserved some recognition for what he did, but he isn't nearly the player ARod is. This year the voters got it right, ARod was easily the most valuable player in the league. Here's a complete rundown of the voting.
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