In a recent post suggesting that CC Sabathia should have come higher than fourth in the Cy Young voting, I casually mentioned that I do not believe that pitchers should be eligible to win the MVP. I didn’t develop that thought further because I was writing a post about the Cy Young voting. Then, Justin Verlander went ahead and won the AL MVP. In light of that I wanted to explain my opposition to allowing pitchers to win the MVP, and put forward what I believe an ideal set of baseball awards would be.
I have two major objections to pitchers winning the MVP award. The first is that it takes a considerable media narrative for them to win. Justin Verlander was undoubtedly the best pitcher in the AL this year, but it wasn’t at all clear that he was the best player over all. If Fangraphs WAR is to be trusted at all (bear with me, but there are virtually no statistics that allow for such easy comparisons between pitchers and batters) then not only was Verlander not the best pitcher in the AL this year, he wasn’t close to as valuable as Jacoby Ellsbury or Jose Bautista. Verlander won the award because he had a tremendous season that the media latched onto to create MVP hype as well as Cy Young hype. While Verlander was great, so were a lot of other players, specifically position players who are ineligible to win the Cy Young award.
Due to the outsize role the media plays in selecting a pitcher as the MVP there is no rhyme or reason to which pitchers win and which don’t, except that a pitcher is more likely to win in a year in which there is not a clear position player winner on a playoff team. As a result, there is not a clear performance level that a pitcher must eclipse to get MVP consideration. If a position player bats over .300, has 30 or more homers and knocks in 100 or more runs it is obvious that he will feature in the MVP conversation. But pitchers get attention for the award randomly and unfairly. Dennis Eckersley won the MVP in 1992, in a year in which he was worth only 3 fWAR, 3 bWAR, and pitched just 80 innings. There is no way humanly possible he deserved the Cy Young, let alone the MVP. Pedro Martinez, meanwhile, had super human seasons in 1999 and 2000, but didn’t win the MVP (although he did come close in 1999). In either season Pedro was light years ahead of Verlander this year or Eckersley any year, but Ivan Rodriguez had good enough a season in 1999 that the writers gave him the MVP. Pedro was punished unfairly. So long as the media only considers pitchers for the MVP in unusual seasons they shouldn’t be eligible for the MVP, for the sake of not punishing great pitchers who have excellent years in seasons when there are clear position player winners.
The other reason pitchers should not be considered for the MVP is because they have their own award. We call this award the Cy Young award. We’ve named it for baseball’s most famous pitcher because it is an award we have just for pitchers. This award was created because it is difficult to compare pitchers to position players and position players are more likely to win the MVP than pitchers. The baseball world wanted to celebrate pitchers every season. Now that we do this, can we please stop punishing position players? The very same logic that makes hitters ineligible for the Cy Young makes a compelling case why pitchers should not be allowed to win the MVP. It is difficult to compare their contributions, and they play different roles on their teams. Rather than insult some position players some years when a pitcher wins the MVP and some pitchers in other years when a great pitching performance is not considered for the MVP, these awards should be separated completely to acknowledge the distinct, but comparably important contributions pitchers and position players give their teams.
In an idea world baseball would have three annual awards: The MVP, which would be just for position players, the Cy Young and the Mariano Rivera Award. I can’t take credit for the Mo Award. One of the readers of the old Yankeeist site mentioned this idea in our comments section, but it would be an award available only to the best relief pitcher in baseball, named for the greatest relief pitcher in the game’s history. Baseball needs three separate awards for the three distinct roles on the field. This way there would never be any controversy about who the game celebrates. Starting pitchers would have their award. Batters would have theirs. Relievers would have an award, and Dennis Eckersely in a million years would never be allowed to win anything but an award suited to pitchers who throw fewer than 100 innings in a season.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
4 Responses to If baseball’s awards were fair
Leave a Reply
TIQ IQ
The first point makes no sense as a defense for not letting pitchers win the MVP. Pitchers shouldn’t win the MVP because the award doesn’t always go to the most deserving player and the media plays a role in every MVP award decision?
Pedro should have won the award in 1999 and possibly 2000 as well. However I don’t see how him not winning the award because of a media bias then as a good reason some other pitcher shouldn’t win the award now. That’s basically saying Pedro was punished undeserving so all pitchers should be punished so that it’s fair. That’s throwing out the baby with the bath water and basically throwing up our hands because sports writers are, for the most part, idiots. Or at the very least blindly biased.
According to fWAR and bWAR Derek Jeter had a better season in 1999 than Ivan Rodriguez did, with a 7.5 fWAR and 8.0 bWAR compared to a 6.9 fWAR and a 6.0 bWAR. You can make the case that if anything it wasn’t pitchers being discriminated against in 1999, it was the Red Sox and Yankees.
I also dislike the second point, though it makes more since than the first. The reason I don’t like it is because the Cy Young is clearly defined as the best pitcher in the league for that season. So the award only has one criteria in who should be the winner, the best pitcher overall. MVP however doesn’t state that the award should go to the best player, it states the most valuable. The world valuable has for the most part become completely useless in determining who the winner is. A pitcher can clearly be the most valuable player in a league given the right circumstances. So as long as this is the name and criteria for the award pitchers should remain eligible.
I wouldn’t object to a re-naming of the MVP award to something defining the best stats for a position player. Call it the Babe Ruth award, or the Tedd Williams award, and then make it position player only eligible. At least then writers wouldn’t be able to make the world “valuable” so fungible as to fit any criteria they make up in their own head.
The real problem comes from the name and criteria of the award, and the sports writers responsible for given out the award.
I don’t get it. Youre saying that because Verlander didn’t lead CC in one statistic he wasn’t the best pitcher in the AL even though he lead in all others?
He said in the other piece he thinks Verlander deserved the Cy Young over Sabathia, he just think Sabathia should have come in 2nd over the other guys.
I hate that analyses like these are consistently overlooking the award that was put into place years back to specifically address this “pitchers have their own award” critique: The Hank Aaron award. (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/awards/aw_ha.shtml)
The Hank Aaron award is for the best hitter in each league and has been around for a dozen years. It is the equivalent of the Cy Young Award for hitters. As such, any and all arguments that “pitchers have the Cy Young, so they shouldn’t get the MVP” are just silly and false on their face. The best hitter and best pitcher in each league gets their own award. Thus, the MVP award is completely separate.
I’m not saying Justin Verlander was the most valuable player this year, but to say he should be ineligible because he won a Cy Young is just silly. By that argument Jose Bautista should be ineligible because he already won the Hank Aaron award.
Now, if you want to say that the Aaron Award is less well known and less prestigious than the Cy Young, that is true, but completely irrelevant. Until the media and bloggers start taking it more seriously (and they SHOULD) it will always be considered second-rate.
In my opinion, the debates over awards each season should start with Cy Young and Hank Aaron award candidates, then go from there to MVP. Let’s give Hank, and his award, the respect they deserve!