In 2003, Alex Rodriguez won the AL MVP. He did so even though he played for a last-place team. While there are those who say that kind of thing shouldn't matter, since hey it's not his fault the other guys suck, I've always been firmly in the how valuable can he really be camp, since they would've just as easily finished in last without him anyway. That year, I thought the award should've gone (non-Captain division of course) to Jorge Posada, who hit .281/.405/.518 with 30 HRs and a very solid job at catcher, or to Manny Ramirez who hit his typically ridiculous .325/.427/.587. Even Varitek would've been a better choice.
Looking at the adjusted OPS+ leaderboard that year in the AL, the MVP was 5th! Delgado and Ramirez were well ahead as the top 2, with Trot Freaking Nixon and Giambi also coming ahead of A-Rod. In Win Shares, he verrrry narrowly edged out Delgado, who finished 2nd, with Posada 5th and Manny 7th. Any way you look at it, it made no sense to have this last-place player win the MVP, not when there were plenty of deserving candidates to choose from. And now, knowing what we know about A-Rod in 2003, is there any doubt that this decision just got more retarded? Delgado who finished 2nd (and even though Toronto missed the playoffs, they finished 3rd and in his case a) they very well may have finished last without him and b) not his fault he was stuck in the same division as the Yanks and the Sox) and Posada who finished 3rd both have extremely legitimate gripes about this.
Even more than Mike Greenwell in 1988, since Canseco actually deserved his at the time.
“That’s baseball, Suzyn…”
4 days ago
2 comments:
Remember when Morneau won the award? Remember when Pedroia won it? Yeah, MVP doesn't necessarily mean that much.
The post is based on the assumption that it does mean something and that in a perfect world these decisions would make sense. LSATed.
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