MLB just announced Justin Verlander the winner of the Most Valuable Player award! I'm a big Tigers fan so of course I'm excited to see that JV won, but do you think he should have won, being a pitcher?
He wasn't even the MVP of his own team. The Tigers probably would've survived the Central if they'd had a league average pitcher replacing Verlander. If they hadn't had Cabrera, though? They would've been screwed. Besides that, it's not like Verlander had some historically great year -- a very good year, definitely, but if you compare his numbers in context to other pitchers from the last few years, it's not like he was doing anything that incredible. Heck, it's not even his own best year; just compare his stats this year to what he did in 2009. Of course, as a Blue Jays fan, I think it's pretty obvious that Bautista deserved the award...without him, they'd be Orioles-level bad. I'm not shocked he didn't win, though. Playing for a mediocre team in another country isn't exactly a recipe for success.
Yeah, hopefully that doesn't hurt the chances of Matt Kemp winning NL MVP (which by stats he deserves). Maybe it's just I'm a Dodgers fan though, and sweeping MVP and Cy Young'd make it WORTH finishing in 3rd place
Did YOU compare at the 2009 - 2011 stats? You're crazy to say that, only in home runs and strikeouts he did better. That's it! Take a look at this
Seriously? You're using an article that cites *wins* as a reason why his season was so great? Check this graph...basically, Verlander was extremely lucky this year. Just look at his BABIP -- it's third-lowest of any pitcher in the last five years! When you also consider that his ground ball percentage was nothing extraordinary, that means that he relied on his defence to a pretty huge degree to put up some of those gaudy numbers (a fact borne out by his FIP, which measures how well pitchers pitched independently of defence). If you're just looking at traditional counting stats, then I guess his season was a little bit more impressive, but if you look at any of the more advanced/insightful metrics, you'll see that his season wasn't anything really amazing. Very good, for sure, but no way he was the best player in the American League. (For that matter, you could even argue that he wasn't even the best pitcher -- CC Sabathia posted very similar numbers against significantly better competition!) My condolences...but at least the Dodgers have him for another eight years. And soon you'll be rid of McCourt!
We all have our opinions, you say batting average on balls in play is more important. I say a better whip and ERA are more important, which is a factor of getting more wins.
