from Amazon
Friday, September 18, 2009
Should a pitcher have a fair chance at the MVP?
Say that you pay CC 25MM$ this year, and you pay Teix 25MM$, and they both deliver exactly as you expected. That is, you are paying them for performance, and their performance exactly matched your expectations, so that you ended up paying for exactly what you got. That is, their output is worth 25MM$.
Doesn’t that end the discussion right there? You have two players paid 25MM$, who perform as expected, and delivered what you wanted. They are equally valuable. They are worth, in dollars, 25MM$. They are worth, in wins, say 7 wins (or whatever number you want, but it will be identical). They are equals.
Does it matter what position each plays? No, of course not, since that’s all been built into the 25MM$ valuation to begin with.
Otherwise, what would it take for a pitcher delivering a 25MM$ to win? The best non-pitcher to deliver 20MM? 15MM? You see? It makes no sense. The dollar values, or equivalently the Wins or Wins Above Replacement, have encapsulated the positional issue already. You can’t count it again.
If Zach Greinke is delivering 30MM or 40MM$ of performance, then Joe Mauer or Derek Jeter or Mark Teixeira or Chone Figgins better be delivering far more than 25MM$ of performance to be in the discussion.