Thursday, November 20, 2008

Nitpicking the AL MVP votings

First off, congrats to Dustin Pedroia for winning the 2008 MLB AL MVP. I have no qualms with his winning the award, though I thought Kevin Youkilis was probably more valuable to the Red Sox, but whatever.

Despite it not being a controversial decision, there still are matters of concern found within the voting results.

First off, Pedroia received 16 of 28 first place votes. However, he only had a total of 27 votes. One voter left him off his ballot of 10 completely. 16 first place, 6 second place, 4 third place, and 1 forth place. 27 writers had him in their top 4; the 28th writer left him out of his top ten. Stupidity or balls, you decide. Anyways, kudos to you, Evan Grant, for being a maverick.

Perhaps the next biggest issue I have is with Fransisco Rodriguez. Sure, he had a great season for a closer, and yes, he broke the all-time saves record for a season. But in order for a closer to be 6th in MVP voting, you had damn well not have blown 7 save opportunities. Not only that, but one voter put him #1. One of 28 selected voters felt K-Rod was more valuable to the Angels than any other AL player was to his team. Take that, more deserving players!

I'm a Twins fan. A BIG Twins fan (not fat, just a high level of enthusiasm for the team). Therefore, I love following former Twins in their careers post Twins, though I wouldn't have minded if David Ortiz had managed to put up the numbers with the Twins that he has with the Red Sox. Anyways...

I love most former Twins, but c'mon, Jason Bartlett does not deserve a 5th place vote in the AL MVP race. Sure he's decent and all, but really? One of the voters felt there were only four more valuable players in the AL than Jason Bartlett? I'm not even sure he is the 5th best on that team, let alone the entire league. And yes, I am well aware that the Rays voted him their team MVP. Why they did this, I am unsure. Maybe he was feeling down after leaving Minnesota, and the team wanted to boost his spirits.

Another big thing jumped out at me this year. It wasn't who got a vote that was deserving, it was the shock of seeing that not a single voter put Derek Jeter anywhere in their top ten. This is significant as it is only the second time since his rookie season that he received 0 votes for MVP. I'm not saying that Jeter deserved any votes, because he didn't, it's just different to not see him getting any votes. Kind of relieving really.

Oddly enough, each division had one team that had no players receiving any votes. The A's, Royals, and Blue Jays collectively received 0 votes. Mike Mussina received an 8th place vote and yet Roy Halladay zero? Actually, now that I'm checking out their respective stats, that vote may piss me off more than any of them. Who voted for Mussina? Can they explain why they felt Mussina was more worthy of a vote than Roy Halladay?

Halladay is the steak to most pitchers' hamburger. (Food metaphor tribute to FJM...RIP)

Oh yeah, and the NL had an MVP too. Well deserved Pujols! Looking over the voting results there, that shit is fucked.

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