THE SCHAEFER METS PLAYER OF THE YEAR 2005

[Frayed Knot]

I'm strongly in favor of 2C:
Schaefer Classic rules. Award a maximum of 10 points, no more than 6 to any one player. No minimum.

I would have voted in a lot more losses had this been an option.
Instead, I wound up skipping a bunch rather than give inflated grades for bad play simply because it was all-or-nothing.

[nymr83]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I think, in such a case, I would like to be able to vote 6 for the pitcher and zero for everyone else.

that still doesnt strike at the root of my problem- a (good) starting pitcher is responsible for a greater number of plate appearances than a hitter is (making him at least as valuable to a team), yet they are concentrated into 1 out of every 5 games.
if a hitter contributes 10 points worth of effort in 5 games he can get scores of 3 2 1 2 2.
a pitcher should be able to get 0 10 0 0 0 for those 10 points worth of effort in 5 games, yet we are capping him at 0 6 0 0 0. so even though he was objectively as valuable as the hitter over the course of 5 games he is getting far less because of the artificial point cap.
i understand the 6 point cap trying to prevent a hitter from getting 10 points when he goes 2-2, 2hr, 6rbi, we want to reward the 4 guys he drove in too, but a pitcher who throws a 9 inning shutout deserves at least the chance to be given more than 60% of the credit for that win.
i'd like to lift the 6 point cap entirely, but if thats too extreme how bout a 6 point cap on hitters and no cap on pitchers OR a cap on starters equal to the number of innings they pitched, so a guy who goes 9 can get 9, a guy who goes 8 can get 8.

[Benjamin Grimm]

i'd like to lift the 6 point cap entirely, but if thats too extreme how bout a 6 point cap on hitters and no cap on pitchers OR a cap on starters equal to the number of innings they pitched, so a guy who goes 9 can get 9, a guy who goes 8 can get 8.

I think that's worth thinking about. But remember, David Wright, our 2005 winner, got about 140 points in 160 games. That's .875 points per game. In your example, over 5 games he'd have 4.375 points. The hitter who gets 10 points in 5 games is rare. I think allowing a pitcher to get 10 points in a game would tilt things too far in the other direction.

In a game where Pedro throws a 1-0 shutout and the Mets gather four singles, the voting might go something like this:

Martinez 6
Wright 1
Floyd 1
Beltran 1
Reyes 1

But if you eliminate the 10-point requirement, there will be some who will simply vote:

Martinez 6

And that ends up helping Pedro, too, because his dominance keeps the other guys from getting votes.

I think that the rule requiring ten points ended up skewing the results, because there were plenty of cases where guys got more points than they would otherwise have for drawing a walk, or getting a meaningless single, or pitching a scoreless mop up inning.

It's why I like 2© best.

[Centerfield]

I like 2©. Let's face it, in some games there just aren't 10 points to be given out.

I don't like the idea of giving someone 3 points just because he pitched a scoreless inning in mop-up duty of a 10-0 loss.

To Edgy: Stop poking me.

[Guest sharpie]

I'll vote 2© as well although I didn't have a problem with the way it was.

[Valadius]

How about a compromise? Although I'd rather keep things the way they are, here's what I propose:

10-point maximum
6 to 10-point minimum (we can debate this)
maximum of 6 points per player
minimum of two players receiving votes (after all, the whole point was to avoid screwing the also-rans)

[Benjamin Grimm]

Valadius wrote: 10-point maximum 6 to 10-point minimum (we can debate this) maximum of 6 points per player minimum of two players receiving votes (after all, the whole point was to avoid screwing the also-rans)

That's pretty much the 2(a), except for the two-player minimum. The problem with that last wrinkle is that you'd also have to have a minimum point value for that second player, otherwise it's easily subverted. You could just do:

Martinez 6
DeFelice 0.01

[nymr83]

ah but wright averaged that amount. i am sure there are 5 game stretches in which he had 10 points, a pitcher cant possibly get that many points.
wright had 140 points, and i can easily see a hitter next year having 150-155.
a pitcher's absolute maximum with 34 starts would be 204 with a 6 point maximum, if half his starts were shutouts (and i have to assume a shutout gets a 6) and the other half were "worth 3" (something along the lines of 6-7 innings 2-3 runs) he'd get a 153, surely such a pitcher has had a better year than wright had this year? but he could theoretically still get screwed by a hitter having a good year simply because he cant get maximum points for his efforts.

[Theoldmole]

That's why they have the Cy Young.

[Edgy MD]

Let's face it, in some games there just aren't 10 points to be given out.

Of course there are. A point is an abstraction. It has no real meaning outside of the context of the relative performances of the game.