Grantland

[Leather]

I think thats oversimplifying it. He thinks team performance absolutely should be a factor, but not the sole factor. Thats not an especially unusual position to take.

And I think you are sanding the edges of his argument to make it look more reasonable than it really is. Here's his conclusion on the matter:

Here's what I believe: The best player on a noncontender shouldn't be considered "most valuable" unless (a) his numbers demolish everyone else's numbers, and (b) there wasn't a kick-ass candidate from a better team.

Basically, Simmons believes you should look at the top 3-8 teams, find the best player from one of them, and he's your MVP. If, however, there are not "kick-ass" players (which means what, exactly? Just for shits and giggles, this would be a great time for him to actually use some of the statistical stuff he just spent 3 paragraphs chewing on. Does "Kick-Ass" = 10 WAR? 4 WAR?). Note that in the footnote to this section he approves of the voter logic that Willie Stargell in 1972 was a better MVP candidate than Steve Carlton, purely on the basis of team performance. That's stupid.

"Buys into them" in what sense? Recognizing that they offer a really accurate window into how good a player was? I think he does that. But one can recognize that stats are the best/only way we have to reliably gauge how well a player performed, but not necessarily think that individual performance is all that matters when determining MVP. If holding players accountable for shit beyond their control (who they played with, when and where they played, who they played against) seems unfair, it shouldn't, because we as a society do this for EVERYTHING. Presidents are judged on economic performance which they very rarely have any real control over. Oscars are taken from movies that fulfill a fairly narrow range of criteria regardless of how good the performance of any one actor might have been. CEOs are credited when their company does well or badly, even if said companies are simply performing in line with the rest of the market.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Both you and Simmons follow the same logic, which goes something like this: Stats are great at determining how good a player is, because we can isolate their performance and see what their actual contribution is. But, you know, there's other factors to evaluating their performance. Like stuff beyond their control. So stats aren't everything.

Do you see that this doesn't make sense? Statistics, especially the advanced ones, isolate the shit that is beyond the player's control, and in so doing, help understand how good a player actually is, regardless of all the external factors surrounding them. This has nothing to do with "credit." In sports, "credit" is akin to how a player is viewed by the press and fans, just like "credit" for a CEO looks at how stockholders and the financial section view him. Meanwhile, the CFO (and Board) actually do, if they have half a brain, look at his/her performance in light of factors beyond his/her control, like the market. And actors? Judging an actor is completely subjective. There is no OBP for Meg Ryan in 1990. Please, stop using this argument to compare, because it's just wrong and misses the point of statistics. The fact that Simmons refuses to stop thinking about baseball in this manner leads me to believe that he doesn't really buy into statistics. It's an analogy that seems to kind of work, but it doesn't hold up if you take a minute to think about it.

 

[Leather]

"Greatness" in American society has never been about an individual doing everything they can with what they can control, it has always been about also benefiting from being in the right circumstances. One can recognize this without disagreeing with it. Stats give us a better way to isolate individual performance, but they don't override the fundamental fact that as a culture we like holding people accountable for stuff they can't control.

So you want to reward luck? Ok. I think that's wrong, both in society and baseball. I think, as much as reasonably possible, actual performance should be rewarded. Simmons seems to buy into this "throw my hands up in the air and just deal with it, dude!" mentality, and I think it's lazy and misguided. It also relies on the premise that "Valuable" doesn't mean valuable, but actually means "greatest," and I'm not sure how you or Simmons can so cavalierly make that conclusion.

Its not that strange an argument at all. It comes to two simple questions:

What did player x's team accomplish?
How much of that accomplishment should be credited to player X?

Ok. Again, this is what WAR is for, right? Or VORP? I mean, that's the nature of those stats? Right?

If your team didn't actually win much at all, then the answer to question 1 is "not much", and so no matter how much of that meager accomplishment you want to credit to player X, they're still operating with a ceiling.

Again, so both you and Simmons think the primary criteria (not, as you said above, simply considered as "a factor") for MVP is not how good a player objectively was, but how good the team he played for was. To me this trashes the entire basis for relying on individual statistics in the first place. Hence: "does not buy into them."

If your team won a shitload, but were so stacked that it is questionable whether player X was absolutely critical to all of those wins, then they're also going to suffer. Call this the "Lebron James can't be MVP while he's playing with Wade and Bosh unless they collectively shatter every record in the books" corollary.

Well, ok. But you're inexplicably (and Simmons did this too) moving the focus from baseball, where individual contribution is easily measured, to basketball where it's not. These comparisons mean nothing to me. It's like relying on German case law to prove that someone is guilty in American court. Who gives a shit? Not relevant to the discussion.

A

gain, you see this thinking all over the place. The best presidents are always considered the ones who took over the country at a shitty/tough time, and then performed "well", even if a lot of that wasn't stuff they really controlled (like they came in when the economy sucked, then it improved, so they are seen as great for the economy regardless of what they did). If the country went to shit when you were president, sorry, you can't be one of the greats. But if it was in great shape when you found it, you can't be one of the greats either even if you kept the ship sailing smoothlly. How good you actually were as a leader is but one of many factors in determining how history will view you.

Again, Presidents cannot be statistically measured because there are far too many moving parts. They are voted in and out on the basis of how people feel about them subjectively. That's politics.

We don't have sabermetrics for presidents, but if we did, I don't think this dynamic would change in at all.

Well, only because there would be people like Bill Simmons telling us that the metrics were "totally cool, bro, but like, how bogus it would be to vote for a President on that basis because, well, we've never done it that way before!"

Edit: To expand upon this a bit, Americans don't like people who "make excuses". But what is "making excuses", really? Well, more often than not, it means putting outcomes in context. "Sure I was late to work, but only because there was a pileup on the freeway." "The only reason we lost is because our starting quarterback had the flu". That kind of thing. It takes a black and white outcomes and muddies the waters, and we've never liked that, which is why we have so many sayings like "no excuses." We like tasking people with outcomes they may or may not be able to entirely control, then holding them fully accountable for those outcomes.

WTF? Jose Bautista is not saying "Oh shit, if I played on the Red Sox, I'd have 70 HR! I totally should win!"

Well, a lot of sabermetrics is fundamentally about context. "Pitcher X might have given up a shitton of runs, but only because he got super unlucky on balls in play." "Player Y might have had a zillion RBIs, but really thats because he played in a hitter's park with 3 speedy, high onbase guys in front of him in the lineup." That kind of thing. They're a direct challenge to the prevailing "no excuses" ethic, because they are all about providing more in-depth context.

No. It's not "excuses". It's a measurement of how good a player actually is if you take away factors beyond his control. And, btw, your point completely ignores the flipside of the argument, that a guy who has 100 RBI because he hits in a stacked lineup may only have 78 RBI if he played on the Royals. What happened to the "LeBron Corollary"?

I suppose one might therefore say that to buy into sabermetrics, you have to reject the "no excuses" ethic that blames or rewards people for outcomes regardless of context. But I don't think thats true. Its possible to recognize that one is holding people accountable for stuff beyond their control, and then happily do it anyway. Like, one can say, "RBIs are clearly only tangentially related to individual performance. They are massively dependent on having hitters around you in the lineup get on base." and fully believe that. Then one can also say, "The MVP is the hitter who best took advantage of opportunities created for him by teammmates who get on base a lot." There's no contradiction there. Its an eyes-wide-open, fully conscious embrace of an ethic that knowingly takes into account factors beyond the control of the individual.

What about the guy who has a higher % of RBI's per men on base (i.e. one who "takes advantage" of more opportunities), but has a total of 80 RBI, or a guy who has 120 RBI but was less successful per opportunity?

Of course, thats hugely unfair to those individuals, to the guy who might have hit every bit as well but simply had worse teammmates. But who ever said life, let alone baseball, was fair?

And some people, I guess, are about trying to make what is unfair more fair, and some (like you and Simmons) are not interested in fairness. Ok. I get it.

 

[tmorgan]

Basically, Simmons believes you should look at the top 3-8 teams, find the best player from one of them, and he's your MVP. If, however, there are not "kick-ass" players (which means what, exactly? Just for shits and giggles, this would be a great time for him to actually use some of the statistical stuff he just spent 3 paragraphs chewing on. Does "Kick-Ass" = 10 WAR? 4 WAR?). Note that in the footnote to this section he approves of the voter logic that Willie Stargell in 1972 was a better MVP candidate than Steve Carlton, purely on the basis of team performance. That's stupid.

He actually didn't say that, he thought Carlton ought to have finished as the runner up to Bench. I got the sense that he was requiring at least a 7-8 WAR player on a playoff team to be considered kick-ass. Jonah Keri and Damesheck went over a bunch of the same kind of questions on Jonah's podcast that is now on the Grantland network. I think the fundamental point is that given the error bars on WAR between pitchers and hitters as a calculation if Bautista finishes at 9 WAR and Verlander finishes at 8, given the additional importance that an ace pitcher is given by playoff teams it wouldn't be a miscarriage of justice for Verlander to win. That said I'm surprised nobody brought up WPA, especially given that Jonah just moved from Fangraphs. I don't think WPA should be used to think about true talent, but given that situational performance is relevant to the idea of value it seems appropriate to look at single season WPA performance. On that front Verlander actually comes out as the most valuable pitcher (but again barely better than Weaver), but is farther behind Bautista than in WAR. The fact that Verlander is the best MVP option from a playoff team is really the point of the whole argument, despite that pitchers have rarely won, which is probably the best argument that could be made for an MVP from an AL playoff team.

 

[mauf]

I didn't spend hours parsing Simmons's arguments, as others here evidently did. From a casual read, I took away four points:

1. Players on non-contending teams shouldn't win the MVP, unless they're head-and-shoulders above everyone else.
2. Jose Bautista stands head-and-shoulders above the other position players in the A.L. this season.
3. Justin Verlander, however, is on par with Bautista, and deserves extra credit for playing on a contender.
4. It's bullshit that some writers won't give starting pitchers their due in MVP voting.

Each point could have been sharpened considerably, but not without making the article less accessible to casual fans.

 

[NatetheGreat]

Both you and Simmons follow the same logic, which goes something like this: Stats are great at determining how good a player is, because we can isolate their performance and see what their actual contribution is. But, you know, there's other factors to evaluating their performance. Like stuff beyond their control. So stats aren't everything.

No, individual performance independent of external factors, which is what the stats at hand measure, isn't everything. Stats tell us how good players are, independent of external circumstances. But baseball is not played independent of external circumstances--in fact the outcome of any one player's contributions are going to be hugely dependent on external circumstances. One pitcher can pitch mostly great, but have bad luck on a couple balls in play and give up a bunch of runs. Another pitcher can pitch terribly but have every line drive sail right into his defender's glove, and leave with a shutout. Advanced stats can tell us this, can tell us exactly how much more skilled the first pitcher is than the second and how much impact their respective luck has.

But what they can't tell us is how much value we should place on that information. Or they can, if we're GMs like Theo trying to determine who to sign. But as individuals, filling out our imaginary MVP ballots? We can use whatever the fuck criteria we personally find meaningful--including simply going off outcomes and results, regardless of external factors at play. Knowing that the first player pitched better, we can nevertheless say "you know what? sucks to be you, but Pitcher number 2 got vastly luckier, so we're giving the award to him."

Do you see that this doesn't make sense? Statistics, especially the advanced ones, isolate the shit that is beyond the player's control, and in so doing, help understand how good a player actually is, regardless of all the external factors surrounding them.

And that can be valuable to a GM. To a fan, or an MVP voter? Not necessarily, because maybe they don't care how good a player is regardless of external factors, they care about whether he saw positive results, regardless of how those results came about--including if they are purely luck or a product of external factors.

So you want to reward luck? Ok. I think that's wrong, both in society and baseball. I think, as much as reasonably possible, actual performance should be rewarded.

And I think thats senseless. Our entire culture is built around rewarding luck and punishing bad luck. Kids who are born into shitty circumstances have much shittier prospects than kids born with trust funds. But if they fuck up, we still send them to jail and treat them like shit, and we we still massively reward the trust fund kids throughout their lives, for what is fundamentally a matter of being lucky enough to be born in the right place. Obviously this is unjust--but just because we recognize that doesn't mean we have to reject it. Our entire culture is living proof of that fact. We are very, very good at accepting injustice, in every facet of our existence.

You seem to be saying "but blaming or rewarding people for shit they can't control is totally unfair." And I'm saying, "I know. I don't necessarily have to care though. I can still, knowingly and with my eyes wide open, choose to be unfair, and there is no sabermetric formula proving that voters and fans should be fair."

Ok. Again, this is what WAR is for, right? Or VORP? I mean, that's the nature of those stats? Right?

No, those tell us how many wins a player added to his team. All wins are not necessarily equally valuable. There is essentially zero value in winning 70 games rather than 65--you won't make the playoffs either way, your fans are not going to give more of a shit because you won 5 ultimately meaningless games. So what "value" does a 5 WAR player bring to a 65 win team? None, because those 70 wins are not in any way more meaningful or valuable than 65 wins would have been. Similarly, turning a 100-win division winner into a 105-win division winner is fairly paltry to a team's bottom line, and rarely meaningful to their playoff chances unless there happens to be a team that won between 101 and 104 games somewhere else in the league.

Simmons seems to buy into this "throw my hands up in the air and just deal with it, dude!" mentality, and I think it's lazy and misguided. It also relies on the premise that "Valuable" doesn't mean valuable, but actually means "greatest," and I'm not sure how you or Simmons can so cavalierly make that conclusion.

I'm not following you. You seem to be the one saying that "most valuable" simply means the greatest player. I certainly never said that, I don't think Simmons did either.

And some people, I guess, are about trying to make what is unfair more fair, and some (like you and Simmons) are not interested in fairness. Ok. I get it.

Glad to help out.

 

[PBDWake]

So... just so we're clear, if Jose Bautista put up the exact same year in Atlanta, or Arizona, or Milwaukee, he's become more valuable? And hell, if you buy into Pythagorean Wins, which I do, he's already doing it on a (slightly) better team than Detroit. He just has the shitty luck of playing in the AL East.

See, for me, Most Valuable Player is pretty simple. It's the player I thought contributed the most. He's the Most Valuable Player.

 

[NatetheGreat]

So... just so we're clear, if Jose Bautista put up the exact same year in Atlanta, or Arizona, or Milwaukee, he's become more valuable?

Why is that strange at all? Bautista is, what, an 8 WAR player? Toronto projects to finish with about 80 wins and of course 4th in the division. With 8 less wins they'd be a 72 win team, which would still put them 4th in the division. The fans are not going to buy more tickets because they got 80 wins instead of 72. I'm sure Bautista brings some value simply because he's one of the attractions putting asses in the seats, but in terms of actual baseball production, 80 wins is not better than 72 wins in any sense that is actually meaningful. Whereas Verlander's slightly over 7 wins added are right now literally the difference between the Tigers being in the playoffs and not.

edit: And the fact that the Tigers aren't really any better than the Blue Jays isn't relevant. I mean, it sucks for Bautista that he plays in the AL East, but he does--adding meaningful value to a non-Sox, non-Yankees team in the AL East is extremely difficult. As he's learning, you can be amazing, or you can be shitty, it doesn't really matter you aren't making the playoffs in that division, which makes it nearly impossible to call any Toronto player particularly "valuable" in any meaningful sense. I mean, they might get their teams a couple more wins, but those wins will never, ever matter.

Verlander had a better opportunity than Bautista to contribute meaningful value, because he plays in a division that is actually winnable. That sucks for Bautista, but it doesn't change the fact that he's adding 8 wins no one gives a shit about, whereas Verlander is adding slightly less that are turning out to be extremely important to Detroit.

 

[PBDWake]

Because his value hasn't changed at all. All that's changed is the value of the players around him. Essentially what you're saying is that the MVP as you define it is almost always going to wind up being the best player on the most surprising playoff team, because they were fortunate to play on a team that was good enough in what was likely a bad division to make the playoffs, but not good enough to actually be expected to accomplish anything, because that way their accomplishments stand out, and there likely isn't a similarly skilled player on their team. So the one standout on the bad playoff team will win unless someone Pujols or Bondses the league.

 

[Leather]

edit: And the fact that the Tigers aren't really any better than the Blue Jays isn't relevant. I mean, it sucks for Bautista that he plays in the AL East, but he does--adding meaningful value to a non-Sox, non-Yankees team in the AL East is extremely difficult. As he's learning, you can be amazing, or you can be shitty, it doesn't really matter you aren't making the playoffs in that division, which makes it nearly impossible to call any Toronto player particularly "valuable" in any meaningful sense. I mean, they might get their teams a couple more wins, but those wins will never, ever matter.

To whom?

I guarantee you that people who like baseball in general, and those who like Blue Jays baseball in particular, find Bautista's performance very valuable.

EDIT: Every game matters. Bautista's performance effects the way the Red Sox and Yankees game-plan around the Blue Jays. Saying that his performance exists in a vacuum contained within the W/L of Toronto is ignoring the nature of the game. Bautista's performance, because it's so amazing in 2011, has ripple effects.

The bottom line is that it's an age-old discussion, and your POV is certainly not "wrong". I think, however, we can agree that this debate will go on for eternity until some better guidelines are given. Failing that, I think we can agree that arguing about this sort of thing is what makes sports fun/frustrating in the first place.

 

[JoeyBelle]

By pure numbers, Bautista's season is a little more impressive than Verlander's season, which is why the WAR differential (8.0 for Bautista, 7.3 for Verlander) makes sense.

Sure, for bWAR. What about fWAR, where Bautista (7.9) has a slim- and shrinking- lead over Ellsbury (7.7), while Verlander is at 6.4. I know neither WAR calculation is perfect, but to ignore fWAR is irresponsible.

 

[NatetheGreat]

Because his value hasn't changed at all. All that's changed is the value of the players around him.

Value to whom? Certainly not to his team. You're acting like a player's value to their team is purely a matter of that player's individual contribution, which clearly isn't true at all. Players are more valuable to some teams than others, for a whole host of reasons. Cliff Lee over the past couple years has been vastly more valuable to playoff contenders than he would have been for, say, the Pirates, because he was critical to a several deep postseason runs but would likely have made an essentially inconsequential difference in the fortunes of a truly shitty team.

This is why we have concepts like "rebuilding years" in the first place, because it is obvious that there are situations where teams are in positions where another great player could be hugely valuable and make them contenders, and there are situations where adding a great player would be nearly worthless because you'd be jacking up payroll to go from being a shitty team to a marginally less shitty team. Clearly, those great players are more valuable to would-be contenders than teams in the process of rebuilding.

This is true in literally every sport, and really, every job on the planet. For example, I'm a book editor. I focus on genre fiction, mainly fantasy and sci fi, and I think I'm a pretty good one. I have a certain value to my company, because they're looking to do more commercial fiction and they don't have a lot of editors who know genre fiction. I might have similar value to some other companies...but certainly not all. Houses which are already stacked with genre fiction editors, or which have limited interest in "non-literary" fiction, wouldn't get much value at all out of my contribution. That has nothing to do with my individual abilities, and everything to do with their situation, but it doesn't change the fact that I am more valuable to some companies than others.

This is almost certainly true for everyone else in this thread with a job, and it is clear that professional sports aren't really any different. The value of a worker has as much to do with the needs of their workplace as it does with their individual skillset.

Essentially what you're saying is that the MVP as you define it is almost always going to wind up being the best player on the most surprising playoff team, because they were fortunate to play on a team that was good enough in what was likely a bad division to make the playoffs, but not good enough to actually be expected to accomplish anything, because that way their accomplishments stand out, and there likely isn't a similarly skilled player on their team. So the one standout on the bad playoff team will win unless someone Pujols or Bondses the league.

Not necessarily, but I do think it can be very useful to try to figure out how many fewer wins an MVP candidate's teams would have without them, and then sit down and say "okay, so in real terms, what value did the wins they brought their team have?"

The bottom line is that it's an age-old discussion, and your POV is certainly not "wrong". I think, however, we can agree that this debate will go on for eternity until some better guidelines are given. Failing that, I think we can agree that arguing about this sort of thing is what makes sports fun/frustrating in the first place.

Absolutely. If I didn't enjoy arguing this stuff I wouldn't do it.

 

[URI]

Why is that strange at all? Bautista is, what, an 8 WAR player? Toronto projects to finish with about 80 wins and of course 4th in the division. With 8 less wins they'd be a 72 win team, which would still put them 4th in the division. The fans are not going to buy more tickets because they got 80 wins instead of 72. I'm sure Bautista brings some value simply because he's one of the attractions putting asses in the seats, but in terms of actual baseball production, 80 wins is not better than 72 wins in any sense that is actually meaningful. Whereas Verlander's slightly over 7 wins added are right now literally the difference between the Tigers being in the playoffs and not.

edit: And the fact that the Tigers aren't really any better than the Blue Jays isn't relevant. I mean, it sucks for Bautista that he plays in the AL East, but he does--adding meaningful value to a non-Sox, non-Yankees team in the AL East is extremely difficult. As he's learning, you can be amazing, or you can be shitty, it doesn't really matter you aren't making the playoffs in that division, which makes it nearly impossible to call any Toronto player particularly "valuable" in any meaningful sense. I mean, they might get their teams a couple more wins, but those wins will never, ever matter.

Verlander had a better opportunity than Bautista to contribute meaningful value, because he plays in a division that is actually winnable. That sucks for Bautista, but it doesn't change the fact that he's adding 8 wins no one gives a shit about, whereas Verlander is adding slightly less that are turning out to be extremely important to Detroit.

What I'm getting out of this is that, due to circumstances completely outside his own control, Jose Bautista isn't a meaningful MVP candidate.

I disagree with Dr.Leather. You are wrong. Your view is unreasonable, and a very good example on why MVP candidate discussion are boring and masturbatory. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but it's a dumbshit opinion.

When most of the debate centers on the "rules" defining the debate, it just makes me want to become violent.

 

[NatetheGreat]

What I'm getting out of this is that, due to circumstances completely outside his own control, Jose Bautista isn't a meaningful MVP candidate.

Yes, a person's value to their workplace is due as much to the needs and situation of their workplace as it is to their individual abilities. Jose Bautista is somewhat valuable to the Blue Jays, I'm not at all convinced that he couldn't be much more valuable to other teams in the league. Of course thats not "fair" to the individual, but it is nevertheless true.

 

[URI]

Yes, a person's value to their workplace is due as much to the needs and situation of their workplace as it is to their individual abilities. Jose Bautista is somewhat valuable to the Blue Jays, I'm not at all convinced that he couldn't be much more valuable to other teams in the league. Of course thats not "fair" to the individual, but it is nevertheless true.

I think you're seriously discounting just how much 8 wins is worth to a baseball team, even on the low end. Like the difference between 90 loses and .500 is huge to the bottom line.

But none-the-less, disqualifying someone from an individual award for circumstances completely out of the control of the individual is silly. It's just as silly as the semantic "It says 'VALUABLE', not 'BEST' player!!!" that you get out of people to justify things like Miguel Tejada over ARod, or Eckersley over Alomar/Puckett/McGwire.

 

[PBDWake]

Value to whom? Certainly not to his team. You're acting like a player's value to their team is purely a matter of that player's individual contribution, which clearly isn't true at all. Players are more valuable to some teams than others, for a whole host of reasons. Cliff Lee over the past couple years has been vastly more valuable to playoff contenders than he would have been for, say, the Pirates, because he was critical to a several deep postseason runs but would likely have made an essentially inconsequential difference in the fortunes of a truly shitty team.

We're arguing because, by your own absurd logic, if Justin Verlander goes undefeated the rest of the season, puts up a 1.50 ERA, and strikes out 10 batters a game, but the Tigers lose every other game that the other pitchers start and Cleveland passes them for a playoff spot, Justin Verlander's value has gone DOWN.

 

[NatetheGreat]

But none-the-less, disqualifying someone from an individual award for circumstances completely out of the control of the individual is silly.

"Value" does not exist in a vacuum, it is a product of supply and demand. Individuals have control over their specific contribution--if someone plays great they are a rarefied commodity, of which there is limited supply. That can raise their value.

But that still doesn't cover the "demand" side of the equation, namely, how much their workplace values that contribution.

Basically, "value" is never, ever going to be a matter of the individual, it is always going to be dependent on the demands of their workplace and the marketplace.

It's just as silly as the semantic "It says 'VALUABLE', not 'BEST' player!!!"

Um, it does say "valuable".

We're arguing because, by your own absurd logic, if Justin Verlander goes undefeated the rest of the season, puts up a 1.50 ERA, and strikes out 10 batters a game, but the Tigers lose every other game that the other pitchers start and Cleveland passes them for a playoff spot, Justin Verlander's value has gone DOWN.

If every other Detroit player falls apart to the extent that they are literally incapable of winning a game Verlander doesn't pitch, then clearly they aren't in a position to contend at all, and clinging to one impossibly great pitcher might not be the wisest move. In that case, they should likely rebuild, and while trading Verlander wouldn't necessarily be essential to rebuilding, if the right offer came along in terms of solid young players and elite prospects, they'd have to consider it, because clearly they'd be in need of many, many pieces to get back in a position to contend. I'd call that becoming less valuable to his team (though perhaps more valuable as a trading piece), even as he's becoming the greatest pitcher in the history of the universe.

 

[Mystic Merlin]

You're making an interesting argument, but it totally misses the forest for the trees.

Your rebuilding/contender framework sucks shit, and for one simple reason: Justin Verlander might not make the Orioles a playoff contender, or even close to it, but they'd be just as better off with him as the Red Sox purely in terms of wins. Now, for the Red Sox that may mean a great shot at winning the World Series and for the Orioles an opportunity to escape the absolute cellar of baseball, but he's still contributing the same value to both teams in absolute terms. The O's would be X wins worse off and X dollars less rich without him. By definition, the most valuable player is the one who accounts for the most wins above a league average replacement. Your economic tutorial is nice, but it fails to account for the fact that the market demand for a Verlander or Bautista will be inelastic (see what I did there?) and high across the board. The Orioles and Red Sox will value Verlander or Bautista equally; the Sox have greater resources to employ in acquiring him, but that's a different story

If we're handing out the MVP partly based on factors outside of the player's control impacting his 'value' - which you've arbitrarily decided is dependent on whether the player's addition would make them a playoff team or World Series contender - then it really isn't an individual award anymore. Or, at the very least, it has become 'who is the best AL player on the Yankees/Red Sox/Rangers/Rays/Twins'.

 

[NatetheGreat]

Your rebuilding/contender framework sucks shit, and for one simple reason: Justin Verlander might not make the Orioles a playoff contender, or even close to it, but they'd be just as better off with him as the Red Sox purely in terms of wins.

But not all wins are equally valuable to a team's bottom line. Playoff appearances are hugely valuable, WS wins much moreso.

Now, for the Red Sox that may mean a great shot at winning the World Series and for the Orioles an opportunity to escape the absolute cellar of baseball, but he's still contributing the same value to both teams in absolute terms.

Are you seriously arguing that going from the absolute cellar to the near-absolute cellar is equally valuable as going from not winning the WS to winning the WS? I dont think there's a GM or president in the league who'd agree with that.

If we're handing out the MVP partly based on factors outside of the player's control impacting his 'value' - which you've arbitrarily decided is dependent on whether the player's addition would make them a playoff team or World Series contender - then it really isn't an individual award anymore.

As I said, "value" does not exist in the abstract and by definition requires at least 2 parties. The idea of an individual having value in the abstract, independent of the demand for their services, is nonsensical. So the notion that an award for having the most value could ever be entirely based on individual performance is crazy.

Or, at the very least, it has become 'who is the best AL player on the Yankees/Red Sox/Rangers/Rays/Twins'.

Odd, then, that the debate is focusing on Verlander, who doesn't play for any of those teams.

 

[Leather]

Here's the disconnect:

Value DOES exist in a vacuum. $1 in my bank account, and $1 in Warren Buffett's bank account are both worth the same amount of money. They have the same intrinsic value.

Likewise, 40 HR are worth 40 HR, no matter where they happen to take place. An obvious counter to this would be "But 40 game winning HR are clearly more valuable than 40 HR that come late when a team is already well ahead/behind." But again, this is incorrect in the context of evaluating a particular player's performance, because it is not the player's fault (or rather, it's only a tiny bit his fault as one member of the team/staff) what the scoreboard looks like when he gets to the plate. At the end of the game, the scoreboard will say X-X: as much as drama is a compelling part of the game, and likely the reason we ultimately watch sports, when the runs came makes no difference.

A baseball player's sole purpose on earth is to do whatever he can to help his team win. His success at this task defines how valuable he is as a baseball player. His value would not change, as a player, if he's on team A or B. Likewise, my $1 does not become less valuable by virtue of the fact that it moves into Warren Buffett's account. It may appear to be worth less, because Warren Buffett may not value it as much as I did, but its value in the world at large does not change. $1 is always worth $1, and 40 HR is always worth 40 HR, regardless of when or where they take place, for the purposes of evaluating a player's value.

In keeping with the raw economics view, when players come up for free agency, has one ever been discounted because he played for a crappy team? This is different from some GMs not looking past the effect that playing on a shitty team had a player's stats. Does a player with 40 HR ever get offered a smaller contract than a similarly situated player purely by virtue of the fact that they played on a lesser team? No, because that would be insane. The value of both players is deemed equal.

 

[NatetheGreat]

Value DOES exist in a vacuum. $1 in my bank account, and $1 in Warren Buffett's bank account are both worth the same amount of money. They have the same intrinsic value.

This isn't true--that $1 dollar is worth more to you than to Buffett. That's the entire basis of progressive taxation, the recognition that money decreases in value as one accumulates more of it. 30 grand to a poor man can be lifechanging, to Bill Gates it is meaningless.

 

[Leather]

This isn't true--that $1 dollar is worth more to you than to Buffett. That's the entire basis of progressive taxation, the recognition that money decreases in value as one accumulates more of it. 30 grand to a poor man can be lifechanging, to Bill Gates it is meaningless.

So by that rationale, shouldn't a great player on a crappy team win the MVP every year, because he accounts for more of that team's success and hence is more valuable?

Because that's your definition of value: a HR on the Yankees/Red Sox is worth less than a HR on a Blue Jays.

 

[PBDWake]

But also, according to his logic, only to a certain point. Because that dollar is only valuable to a small subset of teams that are good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to have been preseason favorites. It's like saying a dollar is more valuable to a not rich person because they could use it to pay their mortgage on their single family in Roslindale, but hey... for people in the projects who don't own their house, what does a single dollar matter anyways? They're too poor to afford nice shit anyways!

 

[dirtynine]

The MVP award has always been about compromise, that between the contributions of a player as indicated by the numbers on one hand, and the sense that he "deserved it" on the other. Like a lot of baseball, it's an irreducible tug of war between quantifiable and innate, human elements. It's the called strike of awards. There isn't really room to say it's being done wrong, only not to one's satisfaction.

 

[NatetheGreat]

So by that rationale, shouldn't a great player on a crappy team win the MVP every year, because he accounts for more of that team's success and hence is more valuable?

No, I was simply making the point that value is variable depending on demand--it is entirely context dependent. Value in the abstract doesn't exist. What is a dollar worth? It depends on how much the person you're giving it to values it. If I encounter a desperate homeless man, I can likely get him to do things for paltry sums of money that less desperate men wouldn't do, as the douchebag fratboy I recently saw paying Bums to dance seemed to grasp.

Now, the economics of a baseball team aren't really similar at all to the economics driving progressive taxation, except insofar as the very, very basic point that the value of a given commodity (in this case player) will vary enormously depending on context that is entirely independent of that player's performance. Notably, baseball teams have specific thresholds they're gunning for, and meeting those thresholds can add a lot of additional value beyond what each win is normally worth. The playoffs and the world series are the two most obvious examples.

If a player adds enough wins that a team makes the playoffs when they otherwise wouldn't, they have demonstratively added more value to their team's bottom line than they would have had they added the same number of wins to a team that nevertheless failed to make the playoffs, or a team that would have made the playoffs regardless without their contribution (though in the latter case, its possible the player could push a fringe playoff contender into later rounds or even a WS, and obviously a WS has enormous added value--however, MVP being a regular season award, its of course impossible to gauge that contribution when voting for the award).

The idea that value--if not on the open market, then certainly a given player's value to the team they play for (which is what MVP is generally about, no one awards the best trade piece) is context dependent seem so blindingly obvious to me I'm wondering how anyone is even questioning it. If Mark Texiera became available right now, he'd be much less valuable to the Red Sox now that we have Gonzo, than he was a couple years ago when he could fill a real need. Regardless of what he might fetch on the open market, in terms of value to specific teams he is clearly worth more to the Yankees right now than he would be to the Sox if for some reason the Yankees waived him and the Sox signed him. Obviously that wouldn't make him worse, he'd still be an elite player. But to the Red Sox, given their specific situation, what Mark Texiera brings to the table at the moment would be less valuable to us than it would have been a few years ago, or then he would be to several other teams.

 

[Dehere]

This isn't true--that $1 dollar is worth more to you than to Buffett.

Here you're conflating intrinsic worth with perceived worth to an individual within a specific context, which is really what this whole debate is about isn't it? Do you judge a player's value intrinsically or contextually?

I come down on the intrinsic side and right now my vote would be for Bautista. I don't think the contextual side is totally without merit but it's significant, as someone suggested upthread, that when players hit the free agent market - where their value is assessed in the most literal way possible - the judgement of the marketplace is overwhelmingly based on intrinsic value.

 

[Dehere]

Double post

 

[URI]

Um, it does say "valuable".

Are you being obtuse, or did you really miss what I was saying?

 

[NatetheGreat]

Here you're conflating intrinsic worth with perceived worth to an individual within a specific context, which is really what this whole debate is about isn't it? Do you judge a player's value intrinsically or contextually?

I'd say this is accurate, and likely the disconnect between myself and most of the people in this thread.

Are you being obtuse, or did you really miss what I was saying?

I'm not being obtuse, but nor do I think the distinction between "most valuable" and "best" is purely semantic. Value is driven as much by context as by the performance of the individual, and it is entirely possible for someone to be the best player in the league without necessarily adding the most value to their team--the Bautista vs. Verlander debate is a nice illustration of that.

 

[mauf]

NatetheGreat must have loved it when Jayson Stark drove the "Shannon Stewart for MVP" bus back in 2003, based Stewart's 322/384/470 (124 OPS+) line in 65 games after being traded to Minnesota.

 

[Mo's OBP]

In non-AL MVP News: "Welcome to Grantland".

Joking aside, I wonder if this was the original plan, or a reaction to tepid response to the site.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I have a hard time getting too worked up about the MVP debate. But I sure do like these US Open articles. Louisa Thomas is a great writer. Loved her piece today on Donald Young.

 

[PBDWake]

That Dan Klores article was a steaming pile of crap, and truly another reason why Grantland needs an Editor in Chief who takes his job seriously. It's his whole article on PR advice for people ("Just shut up"). But it frequently wanders and rambles, avoids specifics where its convenient for him, and makes all sorts of unsubstantiated accusations.

Take, for example, Albert Haynesworth. He's listed as someone who needs PR advice and has been a train wreck. Here's the singular paragraph on Haynesworth, whom he lumps in with Carlos Zambrano.

[font="Georgia]The great thing about the 350-pound Haynesworth, the football version of Eddie Curry, is that he managed to fleece Mean Dan Snyder, the Redskins' fun-loving spoiled boy and litigation-mad bully owner into "rewarding" him with a $140 million contract. I like that. Snyder lives for the photo op: Tom Cruise, Donnie Rumsfeld (name the worst free-agent signings), Fat Albert. By some acts of God, the brilliant Belichick of New England took a chance on Haynesworth this season, a move comparable to Steve Howe's fifth, sixth, and seventh opportunities to stay straight and revive his career. It's not working out.

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Exactly what does any of that paragraph even mean? Haynesworth got a big contract from Snyder... Snyder likes big splashes... now he's traded to New England, and "it's not working out". Care to expand on that?

He bounces all over to various people who need to "just shut up". But editorially, the biggest problem I have with him is the close of his first section, on A-Rod (the bolding is mine)

[font="Georgia]A-Rod seems to trust his "guru." My guess is that stems from the front-page New York Daily Newsstory the latter planted during the slugger's divorce talks a year or so ago. They must have both gotten a big kick and perverse high from the piece that denigrated the mother of his two children for the alleged "crime" of spending an unsubstantiated $100,000 on a Paris shopping spree. That "plant," according to the unwritten rule book not taught at schools of higher learning, was designed to intimidate the little woman into making a settlement deal pronto (not that she hadn't suffered enough by witnessing tabloid photos of hubby with strippers and middle-aged pop stars). The not-so-subtle threat was that if she didn't succumb, then more "dirt" (true or false) would follow. The strategy worked to perfection. The "plant" was also designed to give "the guru" — and with him, the soulless Rodriguez — favor with the News, offering it as "an exclusive." Such negotiations are common, each side swimming in delusions of piety. Further, "the guru" was able to trick both himself and his client into believing that they wouldn't be revealed as the source of the Donald Segretti-type leak because he and his Daddy rep the New York Post, the chief competition to the News. The Machiavellian thinking went as such: "Alex, if we give the dirt to the Post, her side will know 'we' did it, so let me make a deal with the News. This way, no one will figure out you and I were behind it." Wrong. I did. It was way too obvious.

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Are you kidding me with this? I think A-Rod's a douche. I think his camp absolutely leaked this. And I think that it was absolutely a divorce scare tactic. That being said, I can't make an accusation like that, especially without prefacing it with all those "I think"s. And I certainly shouldn't be able to put it on a website that represents itself as a legitimate journalistic website, without ever referencing if I even have a source (and actually flaunting that he apparently does not), and presenting it as fact, with the sole reason of basically "Only a complete dick would do this, and you guys are complete dicks, ergo..." like he solved some retarded board game of PR Clue. It's absolutely slop.

 

[NatetheGreat]

The Klosterman Oasis piece was well done. I mean, it didn't really offer much new about Oasis, but Chuck has a way of writing that can make even well-worn topics seem interesting. It was also a piece that I thought was well-served by the Grantland article length--long enough to go reasonably in depth, but he didn't overstay his welcome, which is easy to do with a subject like the Gallaghers.

I'm not really sure what the point of running DFW's Federer piece was. By now hasn't everyone with the slightest interest in good sports journalism read it? Thats what I said to myself, as I dutifully clicked it and reread it for what is probably the 4th or 5th time. I don't even like Tennis, let alone give a shit about Federer, and DFW made that piece sing--he was on a very, very short list of guys who could infuse virtually any nonfiction topic with interest and meaning (Michael Lewis is another one I'd put on that list, actually. Michael Lewis could announce his next book was on the economics of high school curling in canada and I'd probably read it). Still, its hard to know what to make of Grantland running it again.

 

[PBDWake]

Did anyone listen to the Jacoby/Simmons podcast on Friday? The podcast network is shaping up really well, and they had Johnny Bananas from the RW/RR Challenge on. While almost all of this is immaterial, he revealed that one of the frequent contestants was for years the "Tampa side piece" for one of the NY Yankees, but they bleeped out his name every time. Simmons and Jacoby's reactions were pretty surprised, and now I'm wondering who it is. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[JimBoSox9]

I just want to know - am I the only one who has absolutely zero interest in the podcast side of things? It simply doesn't fit my habits, schedule, or routine. Grantland lives and dies with the written word, as far as I'm concened.

 

[BS_SoxFan]

I just want to know - am I the only one who has absolutely zero interest in the podcast side of things? It simply doesn't fit my habits, schedule, or routine. Grantland lives and dies with the written word, as far as I'm concened.

Do you/how do you commute to work? I live in downtown Boston and walk pretty much everywhere I go on a daily basis (work, school, etc.). I subscribe to about 10 podcasts and can't even imagine walking as much as I do every day without the podcasts. Thus far I love the Jonah Keri one (I was a subscriber to his pre-Grantland podcast) and the Jacoby one will be stupid fun that makes my walk go by quicker. I'd guess I'm on the young side of members here (24) but I'm loving the podcast selection so far.

 

[Fishercat]

Did anyone listen to the Jacoby/Simmons podcast on Friday? The podcast network is shaping up really well, and they had Johnny Bananas from the RW/RR Challenge on. While almost all of this is immaterial, he revealed that one of the frequent contestants was for years the "Tampa side piece" for one of the NY Yankees, but they bleeped out his name every time. Simmons and Jacoby's reactions were pretty surprised, and now I'm wondering who it is. Anyone have any ideas?

Well, if Robin was the sidepiece, that's not that surprising. She's pretty standard bait and she's lived in Tampa almost forever. So it could be any naturally brought up Yankee, although probably one of the older players. She was on the Real World in 2004, and he was a sidepiece for years as he was coming up in the MLB. She used to live in Florida, he is saying as he grew up, and signed with the Yankees. She was a bartender prior to the RW in 2004 (she may have been afterward but I think she tried the LA/Challenge Life for a while). She said it like he signed with the Yankees, but he also said up and coming with the Yankees. I would like to say Robinson Cano, but would a minor leaguer really have a specific Tampa side piece? Soriano seems a little too early to me. But it had to be someone reasonably significant who came to prominence with the Yankees in the time period where Robin would tend bar, so the list can't be that big.

 

[javaisfun]

The Klosterman Oasis piece was well done. I mean, it didn't really offer much new about Oasis, but Chuck has a way of writing that can make even well-worn topics seem interesting. It was also a piece that I thought was well-served by the Grantland article length--long enough to go reasonably in depth, but he didn't overstay his welcome, which is easy to do with a subject like the Gallaghers.

I'm not really sure what the point of running DFW's Federer piece was. By now hasn't everyone with the slightest interest in good sports journalism read it? Thats what I said to myself, as I dutifully clicked it and reread it for what is probably the 4th or 5th time. I don't even like Tennis, let alone give a shit about Federer, and DFW made that piece sing--he was on a very, very short list of guys who could infuse virtually any nonfiction topic with interest and meaning (Michael Lewis is another one I'd put on that list, actually. Michael Lewis could announce his next book was on the economics of high school curling in canada and I'd probably read it). Still, its hard to know what to make of Grantland running it again.

I hadn't read it, and loved reading it for the first time. I therefore wonder: is there a list of pieces generally considered good sports journalism out there? Or at the very least, what are some articles you think are at the highest level?

 

[Dehere]

There's a quarter-page ad for Grantland in today's NY Times sports section. I can tell you from recent experience that the ad probably cost around 25k.

Kinda funny to see Grantland advertising in a newspaper of all things. Viva la revolution!

 

[johnmd20]

There's a quarter-page ad for Grantland in today's NY Times sports section. I can tell you from recent experience that the ad probably cost around 25k.

Kinda funny to see Grantland advertising in a newspaper of all things. Viva la revolution!

It's a pretty random ad, too. If you look at the ad, you literally have no idea what it is advertising. Maybe that's the point, they want you to go to the site, but if you're going for that many eye balls, you would think they would target the ad a little bit.

Note: The ad is a dartboard with 3 pencils sticking out of it, with the headline "Grantland" at the top with the web link and small "logo" ads for Dove and Subway at the bottom.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

I hadn't read it, and loved reading it for the first time. I therefore wonder: is there a list of pieces generally considered good sports journalism out there? Or at the very least, what are some articles you think are at the highest level?

 

[dirtynine]

The New Yorker's The Only Game In Town anthology is also quite good.

 

[OzSox]

This is yet another terrific tennis story by Brian Phillips, on Djokovic's crazy forehand against Federer when he was match point down.

Novak Djokovic: The Shot and The Confrontation

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

It's a pretty random ad, too. If you look at the ad, you literally have no idea what it is advertising. Maybe that's the point, they want you to go to the site, but if you're going for that many eye balls, you would think they would target the ad a little bit.

Note: The ad is a dartboard with 3 pencils sticking out of it, with the headline "Grantland" at the top with the web link and small "logo" ads for Dove and Subway at the bottom.

It's also likely that the print ad is part of the sponsorship package offered to Dove and Subway. Lots of the big brands still like print, so many of the big web-only media buys find a way to incorporate it. Grantland probably showed them a publicity schedule they'd run, and for x dollars of media buy/"sponsorship", they'd get their logos associated with the publicity run. It allows them to attach more value to the package that Subway and Dove were buying, even if it's probably bullshit.

Saw another Grantland TV ad last night mentioning Simmons. Can't remember, though, if the Dove/Subway logos were in there. Probably not since it was on ESPN and that's likely considered a "house" ad, depending on just how hand-in-glove the different arms of ESPN are.

 

[Leather]

It's also likely that the print ad is part of the sponsorship package offered to Dove and Subway. Lots of the big brands still like print, so many of the big web-only media buys find a way to incorporate it. Grantland probably showed them a publicity schedule they'd run, and for x dollars of media buy/"sponsorship", they'd get their logos associated with the publicity run. It allows them to attach more value to the package that Subway and Dove were buying, even if it's probably bullshit.

Saw another Grantland TV ad last night mentioning Simmons. Can't remember, though, if the Dove/Subway logos were in there. Probably not since it was on ESPN and that's likely considered a "house" ad, depending on just how hand-in-glove the different arms of ESPN are.

But if it's "value added" in the buy, that arrangement typically goes "Plus we'll include you in all of our other ads, print, billboard, etc..."

Meaning, they still had to make the decision to buy the ad for $25K. Dove and Subway are just tagging along. No way that it was a specific part of the deal unless the Dove and Subway ads were prominently featured (as in, each were at least 25% of the ad space).

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Looks like Charlie Pierce is the newest addition to Grantland.

I dig that.

 

[cannonball 1729]

I just want to know - am I the only one who has absolutely zero interest in the podcast side of things? It simply doesn't fit my habits, schedule, or routine. Grantland lives and dies with the written word, as far as I'm concened.

Amen. My ten-minute commute to work doesn't really warrant firing up a podcast, and it just doesn't work for most of the rest of the day.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

But if it's "value added" in the buy, that arrangement typically goes "Plus we'll include you in all of our other ads, print, billboard, etc..."

Meaning, they still had to make the decision to buy the ad for $25K. Dove and Subway are just tagging along. No way that it was a specific part of the deal unless the Dove and Subway ads were prominently featured (as in, each were at least 25% of the ad space).

Oh, agreed. Just saying Grantland may have felt they needed to invest in some "traditional" media to sweeten the pot for the first anchor advertisers. They definitely kicked down the cash themselves.

 

[The Social Chair]

Reality TV League! Bad QB Fantasy League! Fall TV Cancellation Fantasy League!

 

[JimBoSox9]

Do you/how do you commute to work? I live in downtown Boston and walk pretty much everywhere I go on a daily basis (work, school, etc.). I subscribe to about 10 podcasts and can't even imagine walking as much as I do every day without the podcasts. Thus far I love the Jonah Keri one (I was a subscriber to his pre-Grantland podcast) and the Jacoby one will be stupid fun that makes my walk go by quicker. I'd guess I'm on the young side of members here (24) but I'm loving the podcast selection so far.

That's probably a big part of it - my commute is a 30-40 minute drive to work, and I basically listen to either T&R or music the whole way. It's not just Grantland - I've never been sufficiently motivated to incorporate getting podcasts on a mobile device or whatever and making it part of my routine.