Idea Of MVP Award Makes It Hard To Rally Behind
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Tue, November 18, 2008 10:04 AM | Comments: 23
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In his blog, Todd Zolecki rails on Nationals beat writer Rich Campbell from the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance Star about leaving Ryan Howard off his 2008 National League Most Valuable Player ballot.
Meh.
(By the way, that’s an official word now.)
I understand getting all pent up about MVP voting and such, but I don’t. And it’s not even the post-World Series euphoria talking. I just don’t get riled up about these BBWAA awards. Especially the MVP, since you can define the award like 10 ways, and each sportswriter chooses a different way to define it. Either it’s most valuable to his team, or most value in the league, or best player, or best player on a playoff team, or whatever. It’s just useless to debate it all.
For those of you wondering anyway (which might be four of you), my ballot for NL MVP is:
1. Albert Pujols / 2. Ryan Howard / 3. David Wright / 4. Manny Ramirez / 5. Chipper Jones / 6. Brad Lidge / 7. Johan Santana / 8. Hanley Ramirez / 9. Lance Berkman / 10. Chase Utley
But I’m no voter. Only 32 guys vote. Flawed system? Absolutely. Something to worry about? Meh.
Posts: 1650 Tim Malcolm
By the way, as you can see, no Nation Minute today. Didn’t quite have access to my computer, as I let my roommate borrow it for work. But you know: MVP fallout, free agency rumblings, Phils should hire a new coach soon.
Posted: 10:07 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
The kind of writer who left Ryan Howard off the ballot is the kind of writer who vote for Volquez for ROY… and it happened.
Posted: 10:23 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Don M
Tim… no Ryan Braun??
you guys have no idea how much I missed Phillies Nation over the past 3 weeks!!!
Posted: 10:36 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Don M
on 610 wip this morning.. around 8:00am… they had Seth Everitt?? on and he was saying how basically a writer would leave a guy off a ballot to make a point, etc.. but then why wouldn’t Rich Campbell want to comment when asked about it.
Everitt also made the point that someone left Cal Ripken Jr. off of the Hall of Fame ballot the first year he was up for it…
So for those types of reasons, I would agree with Tim that you really can’t or shouldn’t look too much into these awards, they are a joke… and that is why I was saying that Arbitration and Free Agent contracts are based on the STATS, not on the awards that a guy may have recieved (there is a valid arguement that Carlos Ruiz or Jayson Werth could have been World Series MVP…) but it doesn’t make a difference anyway because its just an award
Posted: 10:42 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 1650 Tim Malcolm
Oh wow, I had forgotten Braun. I’d pop him in at five, moving everyone else back a spot. That means Utley goes to 11. Ouch.
Posted: 11:00 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Sam
Eh it’s the beginning of winter, and we are nowhere near knowing whether Lou Marson will be on the 2008 team and we haven’t offered Burrell a contract yet.
What else is he supposed to do today?
And I take it a little personally that a writer would leave Howard off his ballot entirely. Manram placed 4th on the strength of essentially 2 good months after all.
Posted: 11:12 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Manny
We are world champs; we should be able to resign both Burrell AND Moyer AT LEAST. Period.
Posted: 11:37 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Gavin
I couldnt care less about the MVP award. In years past when thats all we had to hang our hat on then it seemed more important, but now that the Phils are World Champs. Who cares about MVP stuff.
The Phils are the World Champions of Baseball…..Can You Believe It!?!?!
Posted: 11:37 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Griffin
The two Nationals beat writers gave Howard one combined 10th place vote. Motivation against the Nats next year for the big fella?
Posted: 11:52 AM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
Have to say thats the reason the Nats don’t show any signs of being anything other than perrenial botom dwellers, if your in that position you better be a classy organisation top to bottom and the Nats really aren’t. It’s no surprise most of their payroll is consumed by players who can’t take the the field and they get into situations like with Crow because that’s a franchise with a bad attitude and no humilty. Don’t you want your beat writers to be the next Buster Olneys? Aparently not in DC…
Posted: 12:11 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Georgie
Welcome back, Don. Are you telling us you didn’t check in here the ENTIRE time you were on your honeymoon? I’ll bet you took a peek while the Mrs. was taking in some beach time, fess up Donny.
Posted: 12:14 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Don M
I heard the Nats are targeting Pedro Martinez… I wish them the best of luck, and I really hope they get him, and set their organization back another 5 years
Posted: 12:15 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Don M
Swear to god.. I only went on the internet twice in Acapulco.. I checked out my email, Phillies.com, and Philly.com to read some sports articles..
I didn’t have the time to get on this site and start impressing multiple countries with my vast baseball knowledge..
85 degrees and sunny.. sitting by a pool with dos margaritas in hand… to now sitting at my desk, after a frigid morning, with only a coffee in hand, the depressing Philadelphia winter is coming
Posted: 12:18 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 NJ
The Nats have their heads so far up their asses they seem to just think their a victim of circumstances…
Posted: 12:22 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Georgie
Ugh, I hear that, for those of us who love the outdoors, I wonder why we live ina place where you’re stuck inside for months on end, HATE winter.
Tim, I missed the Nation Minute this am, I always check that out first thing.
Posted: 12:25 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Eb
UPDATE ON PAT THE GLOVE….
The phillies have given his agent “parameters” on a contract.
not ground breaking news but it is something
Posted: 12:56 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Eb
The nats have NOTHING in their farm system either. Colin Ballister looks to be okay in the MLB, but outside of him, a whole load of nothing
Posted: 12:58 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Bruce
Tim~ “Meh”? So you think it’s a popular word now for you to use as part of your vocabulary? Ugh! You must be a fan of the awful cartoon show ‘Simpson” that popularize it some years ago. I wonder what the linguistic trend will offer as the next “official” word? Teh as in the? ;-)
Posted: 01:15 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 1650 Tim Malcolm
“Simpson”
I mean, come on Bruce, “Simpson”?
Posted: 01:20 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Bruce
From Yahoo News:
“Publisher HarperCollins announced Monday the word had been chosen from terms suggested by the public for inclusion in the dictionary’s 30th anniversary edition, to be published next year.
The origins of “meh” are murky, but the term grew in popularity after being used in a 2001 episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer suggests a day trip to his children Bart and Lisa.
“They both just reply ‘meh’ and keep watching TV,” said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries.”
Posted: 03:45 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 Georgie
Doh!
Posted: 04:01 PM on November 18, 2008
Posts: 0 James K.
Jeez, Utley was so much more valuable than Howard it’s ridiculous. Howard is like #10 on the ballot, if that. Utley is top 5 no doubt. Howard can’t field a lick, and Utley is the best or 2nd best 2nd baseman in the game defensively – and I’m a Met fan.
Posted: 11:53 PM on November 19, 2008
Posts: 0 SJ Phillies Fan
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Makes a great gift!!!
Posted: 11:37 AM on November 20, 2008