THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Aww, shoot. I meant to vote for CC.

I got the name “Oustanding” from the CFL’s Schenley Awards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFL’s_Most_Outstanding_Player_Award

The NHLPA followed suit:
http://www.nhl.com/trophies/pearson.html

They bypass the whole annual phony outrage media-driven “valuable” controversy by using the word outstanding.  That change simply saves the American economy with about 10 million man-hours of wasted energy.  And in this case, it is “man” hours, since no woman would be nerdy enough to argue the point of “valuable”.

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I also don’t distinguish between AL and NL as two “leagues”.  They are two conferences, just like the other three major sports.

MLB plays 11% of their games against the opposing conference.  The NHL is 22%.  The NFL is 25%.  The NBA is 37%.

I think it’s a useless tradition to carry two awards, especially since the “tradition” wasn’t always the case.  Tradition it seems gets to start at whatever point in time you want it to start.

To say that CC Sabathia’s performance in the (better!) AL doesn’t count, or that Manny’s in the AL doesn’t count (even if he played against NL teams while he was in the AL) is beyond silly.

Hyl: I’ll see if I can modify the results.  Who did you vote for by mistake?

Well, “outstanding” to me implies a bit of surprise.  Who stood out?

To me, that’s the difference between a tough call between Halladay and Lee, to voting for Lee in a heartbeat.  Both were awesome, but Lee stood out more.

It’s always going to get nit-picked, no matter what word you choose.  People just like to argue, and as a sportswriter these days, you HAVE to (or so they think).  Posnanski had a nice post on that the other day, in reference to Around the Horn.

Tom, I voted for Lee by mistake. I just didn’t see CC’s name when I first glanced through the list (I thought he had been dismissed for the exact reasons you alluded to in post #2), so I voted for Lee, my 2nd choice.

Thanks for changing it.

Ok, I made the change.

Best Performance by a Pitcher
Best Performance by a Position Player
Best Performance by a Rookie Pitcher
Best Performance by a Rookie Position Player

I think I borrowed the phrasing from the Golden Globes, but I think these four titles would be the least ambiguous of all the names I could think of.

If I understand this correctly, Best Player would imply true talent, so A-Rod would win in the AL and Pujols (maybe Wright) in the NL.

Right, I was thinking “Most Outstanding Performance by a non-Pitcher”.

You can’t say “position player” since DH is not a position.

And “Player of 2008” implies “Performance”.

I suppose I should have said:

“Who PERFORMED as the Most Outstanding Player, excluding Pitchers, in 2008”.

I’m very surprised to see the huge lead Lincecum has over Santana, as well as Lee over Sabathia so big.  Phrased this way, I think Sabathia is clearly the winner.

It’s a three-horse race between Lee, Sabathia, and Lincecum.

Pujols just demolished his competition, with 80% of the vote.

I voted for ARod, despite agreeing Pujols was better, just because there is no way he deserves 0 votes when he may have been second “most outstanding.”

I’m calling it a landslide for Pujols, as he got 79% of the votes after 162 votes.

I have now modified the poll to EXCLUDE Pujols.  In essence, we are voting for the SECOND most outstanding player.

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Here are the final counts while Pujols was still running:
128 Pujols, A.
11 Sizemore, G.
8 Mauer, J.
4 Pedroia, D.
3 Hamilton, J.
3 Ramirez, M.
2 Berkman, L.
1 Beltran, C. 
1 Rodriguez, A.
1 Utley, C.

Oh, and I put in Hanley Ramirez to round out the ballot to ten players.

No Chipper?  I know he was hurt for a lot of the year, but I would still take him over most of the names on that list.

As long as there is at least one guy there that you prefer over Chipper, then it doesn’t really matter does it?

Well, I would make the even stronger claim that Chipper would be a non-crazy pick for this honor; I actually looked for his name when I first saw the list.  FWIW, he is second in Justin Inaz WAR (or rather, I guess, RAR) to Pujols in the majors.

I’m not disputing that he would be a good pick or not.  I had to pick 10 names, and I used the Shadow BBWAA results as the basis:
http://mvn.com/mlb-stats/2008/10/07/and-the-award-goes-to/

If I went to 15 players, he’d be on, along with, I dunno, Wright and Granderson, and two others.

Justin’s RAR has him high because he has a very high fielding value for him.  Put him more reasonable, and the dispute would be between him and Beltran.

After 230 votes:
30% Lee
24% CC
22% Lincecum
16% Halladay

No one else was close.

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After 92 votes:
27% Sizemore
17% Berkman
16% Manny
12% Mauer
11% Hanley

That is of course, AFTER Pujols won by the landslide of 79% and was removed from the ballot.

It will be interesting to see how this compares to the IBA.  They get about 10 times more votes than I do.  Of course, with CC and Manny being treated like second-class players, it won’t be a direct comparison.