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: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.
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.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.
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."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.
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.