Does he though? Fangraphs certainly doesn't agree. One season with a positive UZR, and the rest negative.Originally Posted by PuffyPig
Does he though? Fangraphs certainly doesn't agree. One season with a positive UZR, and the rest negative.
After what the Pirates have been through, if they win the Central, McCutcheon is going to be MVP. I'd vote for him too.
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If we're talking about who gets the most votes for the MVP award, it definitely depends on how the team performs. Voters usually vote for players on playoff teams, and if a playoff team has one clear standout player like McCutcheon, that guy usually wins.
Personally, I think he deserves it.
"I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful
Wishful thinking but I don't see them going 30-50 over the 2nd half of the season even though they are overachieving on the pythag and lights out in close games. They fell apart last year, but this is a better team that is continuing a nice progression.
57 wins in 2010
72 wins in 2011
8x wins in 2012
Yeah, I'm with oneupper and Johnny Footstool. The Reds are a more well-rounded team than the Pirates, so it stands to reason that they'll eventually pull ahead. But if the Pirates win the division, McCutchen deserves the MVP for that exact reason -- he's on a weaker team and proportionately more valuable.
PS The Pirates are not going to win the division.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
I think the MVP should go to the best player in the league because he provided the most value. It is not his fault if his teammates did not add enough additional value to get the team to the playoffs. I think it cheapens the award to give it to a player that was inferior to another player that year.
Looking back in history we think of the great players who won the MVP as being the best in baseball that year. We don't like to think that maybe there were other players who performed better than the MVP. Was Joe Morgan really the best player in the NL in 1975 and 1976 or do we need to wonder if he was merely gifted the award because the Reds won their division? The MVP award is not very meaningful if it is given to the 2nd or 3rd best player in the league. It sullies the integrity of the award.
It is similar to awarding a World Championship to a team that couldn't win its own little division instead of another team that dominated the league that year. A World Series title does not carry the same significance that it did last century because you no longer have to be a great team to win it. Five of the last 13 champions finished in second place and another won only 85 games. Those teams have cheapened the meaning of a championship. They couldn't carry the jockstraps of the truly great champions of the previous century when you actually had to win more games than any other team in your league in order to have a chance to win the World Series.
I oppose allowing 2nd place teams to win the World Series just like I oppose giving the MVP Award to the 2nd best player in the league.
Atomic, voting prior to the 1960's was notorious for voting in players that really didn't deserve the award. Ted Williams probably should have had more MVP awards than he did. Stan Musial was absolutely robbed by Marty Marion (worst MVP vote of all time) simply because Musial won it the year before. I agree with you on this topic.
If he keeps it up, and Pirates beat the Reds.....I'd be all for it. Great story, and very fun baseball player to watch. A little Eric Davis in him.....I like that.
Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand
Me too. I love the game and the Pirates if they pull it off well...it would be good for the game. I wouldn't like how Selig would spin it but that doesn't matter really. McCutcheon would deserve it. Joey will have many more great seasons.
So Barry Larkin's MVP award was a total travesty.
"I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful
Did I say that? Let me check... No. No I didn't.
Maybe you think Larkin wasn't the best player that year and shouldn't have been given the MVP?
This is exactly why limiting the award only to good players on playoff teams cheapens the award -- you have to do some research to determine if the guy who won the award in the past was really the best player that year or if he actually got blown away by a guy whose team wasn't good enough. If you can't automatically recognize the MVP in any given year as the best player in the league that year then what meaning does the award really have? Ask any person off the street what an MVP award indicates for a game, a series, or a season and they will say it means that guy was the best player in that game, series or season. But in baseball many MVPs actually were not the best player that year but they were given the award anyway. Therefore the MVP Award in baseball doesn't really tell us much. So now we can't definitively say that Barry Larkin was the best player in the National League in 1995 because maybe he wasn't -- and that is a shame.
Last edited by AtomicDumpling; 07-07-2012 at 03:50 AM.
I just very much feel that "valuable" implies valuable *to* something. It's relative. A very good baseball player on a basketball team is not valuable. I have never thought that MVP does imply the flat-out best player in baseball.
Cy Young, gold gloves -- those to me imply the best player at his position, regardless of his relative value to his team. It can be argued that a gold glove second baseman is less valuable to his team if he's standing next to a gold glove shortstop, but he's not any less good and deserves that award regardless. MVP to me does have an inherent larger picture component. Just my opinion.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
MVP doesn't mean Most Valuable Player to a team, playoff team, etc,
it means Most Valuable Player in the league.
Hence the National League's Most Valuable Player Award.
I still can't believe Larkin got the MVP that year. One of the worst MVP's ever.
According to whom?
Information given to voters by BBWAA:
"The very first lines of the letter sent to M.V.P. voters say this: “There is no clear-cut definition of what most valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the most valuable player in each league to his team.” (emphasis mine)
Source
We can discuss our opinions on what MVP means, but make no mistake, they are strictly opinions. The official criteria is as nebulous as any we can devise -- frankly more so.
There is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
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