Wrong again..

Yesterday Major League Baseball announced Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees third baseman, as the American League Most Valuable Player, or MVP. This is Rodriguez second MVP, but it is also his first as a third baseman, and his first since he started “playing in pinstripes”. A-Rod won the award over Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, aka “Big Papi”.

Earlier this week St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter won the National League Cy Young Award. Carpenter won the award over the likes of Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins of the greater Miami area, and Roger Clemens (most recently of the Houston Astros).

These two announcements proved to me, once again, that baseball has it all wrong. This is not to say that other professional sports leagues have it right. But I’ve always appreciated being able to point out ways that baseball has it wrong. From steroids (not going there with this article) to extremely prolonged game progression, there are a lot of things wrong with both the sport of baseball, and its major league identity. Thankfully we can rest on the legacy of a game were Rafael Palmiero and Mark McGuire didn’t do steroids, Babe Ruth wasn’t a raging alcoholic and Ty Cobb wasn’t a racist…

Let’s take A-Rod for example. A-Rod is a two time MVP of the American League. He’s a great player, in fact you could make a case that he is the best player in baseball from a skills standpoint. He is an above average defensive fielder (in fact he probably gets less credit than he deserves for his relatively smooth transition from shortstop to third base following his trade to the Yankees), he hits with great power for a shortstop/third-baseman, and apparently, he’s a great poker player…

Rodriguez is also notorious for never having been able to get that big hit when his team really needs it. The Sports Guy once described him as the scariest player in baseball when you’re already down two runs. He lacks that killer instinct, the eye of the Tiger, what the French call a certain… I don’t know what… He puts up numbers, but he doesn’t help his team win tough games.

On the other hand we have David Ortiz. During last years playoffs he single handedly kept Boston alive, and sparked them to a World Series victory; even if he did have to un-retire his glove to play some first base when the games were played in St. Louis. Once again this season Big Papi had big hit after big hit. He batted runs in (a little things I like to call “ribbies”), hit homeruns and played solid defense by having the least errors in the league. Okay, that last part was a joke, but somehow if you look at it from a skewed enough angle, it helps his case. Ortiz was, in many respects, the anti-A-Rod.

Listen to expert analysis on any major sporting award. MVP candidates from losing teams never win, they usually get eliminated from the running immediately, or don’t even really get considered at all. Not in baseball! No, A-Rod has already won an MVP on the last place Texas Rangers. Now, after helping the highest paid and possibly most talented team in baseball history underachieve for the majority of the season, and NOT win a World Series, we give A-Rod the MVP award. Instead of giving it to a player who single handedly won his team games, we give it to a player who single handedly padded his teams scores, make sure they didn’t win games by one run, but instead won them by two or three.

Okay, now let’s take the whole A-Rod and David Ortiz thing and put it aside for a second. Imagine it’s a piece of raw meat that still needs cooking and seasoning, but we’re not ready to eat it yet. We’re going to put it in the freezer for a while…

So as we discussed before, Chris Carpenter won the NL Cy Young Award over Dontrelle Willis and Roger Clemens. In the case of Willis and Carpenter, I think you could make a very legitimate and equally matched argument for both sides. They had almost identical numbers from ERA to number of wins. This was not the case in the comparison between Clemens in Carpenter. Clemens was significantly better in every statistical category save one; wins. Clemens simply could not get any run support. I remember watching a game (while I was in Vegas, winning $300 in a poker game), where Clemens even hit a homerun, only to lose 2-1. Statistically speaking, Clemens was lights out in that game and during this season; having one of his best seasons ever and one of the best seasons in baseball history.
The point is that wins are the most over-rated statistic in the history of sports. This isn’t basketball where scoring 35 points but allowing your defensive assignment to score 36 is a net loss of 1 point. A pitcher has one job, to pitch. Even when a pitcher has to go to the plate, anything a team gets from him is gravy. Pitching 9 innings of 2 hit, 1 run baseball is fantastic, whether a he gets the win or not. I mean how can anyone defend the significance of wins, when a pitcher can leave the game up 5 runs, only to watch his closer collapse, thus losing the win for him. The win statistic can, in many cases, have NOTHING to do with the performance of the pitcher who earns said stat. This goes both ways you say? Pitchers who give up 7 or 8 runs can also get a win, despite pitching horribly, you say? My point exactly.

Roger Clemens should have won the National League Cy Young because he was the best pitcher in baseball (not just the National League). Now Randy Johnson should also have won the Cy Young last year so, in a way, justice was served for Clemens. But Randy Johnson didn’t get his due, and Chris Carpenter got a freebee. The Cy Young is an individual award and it should be given to a pitcher based on his individual performance, not on his teams situational offensive ineptitude.

In the case of the Most Valuable Player award, just the opposite is true. It is an award that goes to an individual based on how much he helps his team. Helping you team comes down to one thing; winning games. David Ortiz did just that, he won games for the Boston Red Sox. Alex Rodriguez put up numbers. Who would you want on your team? I’d take Big Papi and Roger Clemens anytime, and in Clemens’ case, no matter how old he is.