David Wright- MVP?

[Elster88]

I fear that the majority of the old fogeys (fogies?) who vote for MVP don't appreciate win shares and VORP.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Agreed. On the other hand, those same fogies probably put credentials in other things David Wright has going for him. Number-three hitter on a playoff team-type stuff.

[Elster88]

Philosophically, do you have a problem with the right guy winning for the wrong reasons?

Hypothetically, too.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I guess I prefer that to the wrong guy winning for the wrong reasons --- all coming out in the philosophical wash, as it were.

[nymr83]

I'm happy if the (W)right guy wins.

[Valadius]

Believe it or not, Steve Phillips is actually picking David Wright to win the NL MVP.

[seawolf17]

But he's probably still saying the Mets will miss the playoffs.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Why be surprised? Phillips drafted the guy.

[Guest Iubitul]

Edgy DC wrote: Why be surprised? Phillips drafted the guy.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not trying to knock his tenure or priase it. I just don't want Met fannies to get caught up too much in the notion that Steve Phillips was fired by the Mets and therefore our team won't get the credit it deserves on Baseball Tonight.

[Guest Iubitul]

Point taken, but he still doesn't think the Mets will make the playoffs ;-)

[Guest Edgy DC]

I hope BB2N fires him (and each other) the minute the Mets clinch.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'd love to see Wright win this thing, but, and I hate to say it, I think a better case can be made for Jimmy Rollins.

[TransMonk]

Make it.

[Valadius]

A case can be made for Rollins, but I think Utley gets more of the Phillies vote.

David's gotta have a fantastic final week if he's gonna win this thing. Here's how I see the voting right now:

1. Holliday
2. Wright
3. Fielder
4. Utley
5. Pujols

The Rockies' recent surge, propelled by Holliday, has vaulted him into the lead, in my opinion.

[metsmarathon]

i still go wright, as most measures i can find do agree, save vorp, which has him 2nd:

player	WS	WARP3	RC	EQR	VORP
wright	32	12.6	133	123.8	76.9
ramirez	27	10.1	129	120.8	86.7
pujols	29	12.2	115	117.9	66.6
cabrera	27	10.8	131	116	69
holliday	26	11.8	119	116.1	70.4
rollins	26	11.3	116	111.3	60.6
c jones	24	10.3	111	111.8	73.9
utley	26	10.8	107	102.3	67.6
fielder	26	7.5	115	115.4	62.2
beltran	27	9.4	99	96.3	48.5
reyes	24	10.1	105	103.2	48.2
byrnes	28	9.2	100	92.2	37.1
bonds	22	7.5	91	92.4	56.2

rank among mvp "candidates"

player	WS	WARP3	RC	EQR	VORP	avg
wright	1	1	1	1	2	1.2
ramirez	4	8	3	2	1	3.6
pujols	2	2	6	3	7	4
cabrera	4	5	2	5	5	4.2
holliday	7	3	4	4	4	4.4
rollins	7	4	5	8	9	6.6
c jones	11	7	8	7	3	7.2
utley	7	5	9	10	6	7.4
fielder	7	12	6	6	8	7.8
beltran	4	10	12	11	11	9.6
reyes	11	8	10	9	12	10
byrnes	3	11	11	13	13	10.2
bonds	13	12	13	12	10	12

[Guest Edgy DC]

Any room in that table for Jake PV?

[Frayed Knot]

What Wright has going for him above most of the other likely suspects is OBP - a whopping .414 at the moment - which is why many of those metrics above rate him so high. Only Helton, Chipper & Pujols are higher in the NL (w/enough ABs).

The other is that certain voters (wrongly IMO) will eliminate those not on a playoff team (as if missing by a game or two makes one less valuable) so this week's games could eliminate Fielder & Holliday on some ballots, and maybe Utley & Rollins as well.

I believe I heard Adam Rubin say a few weeks back that he has one of the NL-MVP votes this year.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think Rollins will be helped by his being a shortstop.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It sure will be interesting to see how deeply Hanley Ramirez's season gets buried.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Coors Field's Park Factor is 107 this year, not so crazy a hitter's park as it used to, but still second most favorable in the league (GAP in Cincy is 108). Shea, by comparison, is a 95, and Wright kills there.

You can't count Holliday's numbers at home against him or anything, and it's not like he sucks on the road, but the splits are pretty dramatic and worth noting.

[metsmarathon]

peavy's lines inserted into the table... sorta...

there's no good correspondence to EQR and RC, tho i am using PRC (pitching runs created) from hardball times as it seems the closest analogue on the same scale, or so.

looks like he's about 6th.

player

WS

WARP3

RC

EQR

VORP

[Valadius]

I think it'll come down to the wire now, but if Wright continues doing what he's been doing, I think he has a fantastic shot at it. He's hitting .417 (20 for 48) with 6 doubles, 2 homers and 7 RBIs during his current 11-game hit streak. We just gotta win some ballgames.

Tony Gwynn gave his predictions the other day for the NL MVP:

1. Prince Fielder
2. Matt Holliday
3. Chase Utley/Jimmy Rollins

[TransMonk]

Valadius wrote: Tony Gwynn gave his predictions the other day for the NL MVP: 1. Prince Fielder 2. Matt Holliday 3. Chase Utley/Jimmy Rollins

I'd put more stock in those predictions if a) Gwynn had ever won an MVP and his kid didn't play for the Brewers.

[metirish]

What about Keith and Ron saying last night that there should be a " Player of the Year" to go with the MVP like there used to be back in the day,it was "The Sporting News PoTY"....that came up because Gary wondered weather a player can be MVP on a crap team(thinks they can)....Keith said it was very prestiges to win The Sporting News award the year he shared the MVP......he also wondered why they don't sponsor it anymore.Gary told him The Sporting News is so marginalized these days people don't even know about it.....

[soupcan]

A kid came to my door almost two years ago selling magazine subscriptions. He was a nice kid so I bought a few from him even though he represented no magazines that I read at the time.

I wound up with two-year subscriptions to The Sporting News, Metropolitan Home (I live in the suburbs) and Cooking Light (yeah, right). I know it was almost two years ago because thankfully, The Sporting News subscription is about to lapse.

I used to subscribe to TSN when I was in high school and I loved it. I was living in California at the time and it was really my only source of regular Mets news. It was printed on newsprint and was just chock full of baseball news. In those days it still was 'The Baseball Bible'.

These last two years have just shown me how far it as fallen. Baseball is a sidenote to the NASCAR coverage and the writing is like ESPN The Magazine which is geared to people much younger than me.

Not only do I rarely open up TSN when it comes every week but I usually just toss it right in the garbage without even looking at it.

[Vic Sage]

]What about Keith and Ron saying last night that there should be a " Player of the Year" to go with the MVP like there used to be back in the day,it was "The Sporting News PoTY".

i've long clamored for something like this.There is a pitcher of the year award, there is an award for defense at each position, but how can their not be a hitter of the year in each league?

well, of course, there was such an award.... that was what the mvp was created for. But sportswriters have long since construed "valuable" more narrowly than it was intended, and as a result great seasons have been ignored because they happened on teams that did not "win" sufficiently (wherever that line in the sand may be)

Once you have a player of the year award, the MVP becomes an award for the best player or pitcher on the winningest team in each league. Then, the sportswriters can go "intangible" crazy and give it to anybody meeting those criteria, and ignore statistical analysis entirely, if they want.

But lets get that award back and honor the singular distinction of being the best hitter in your league. It can be based on a point system (like the Rolaids award), using some version of what marathon has done.

[Frayed Knot]

The thing about the 'Player of the Year' award that Keith was talking about is that although it was award given from outside MLB itself, TSN was so highly regarded within baseball circles in those days that it was as good as MLB's own awards like the MVP.

They may still give that award for all I know, but TSN abandoned their full-time coverage of baseball in order to attract fans of other sports and wound up pleasing no one. I too used to subscribe years ago but gave it up as it started heading downhill.

]Not only do I rarely open up TSN when it comes every week but I usually just toss it right in the garbage without even looking at it.

I've told this story before; but I followed an on-line link to a free 1-year subscription for 'The Sporting News'.
I discovered I was being overcharged.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I too LOVED the Sporting News and I thought (in my youthful folly) that I'd be a lifetime subscriber.

I canceled it in 1991 when they "revamped" it. It instantly became something I wasn't interested in. I can only imagine how much further it's declined since then.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And I've long questioned how you can decry that sportswriters are construing the award more narrowly than its intent, when you insist on construing it more narrowly than its intent.