The BBWAA Can't Win

I was assuming that we here at The Theorem wouldn't have to devote a post to the NL MVP selection due to the fact that the BBWAA actually got it right. But, as I sometimes do, I forgot that crazy people reside on both sides of every fence. Let's hop one with Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer, shall we?

Ryan Howard was the most valuable player in the National League in 2008.

[To steal a phrase from Colbert, I think we can now diagnose Phil as "factose intolerant."]

Pujols was not an embarrassing selection, not with his excellent numbers....

[I know, right?]

[The BBWAA should] do what it should have done long ago: get out of the business of voting on baseball's postseason awards.... That won't happen because the association is as incapable of being embarrassed....

[Incapable? Remember when they gave Terry Pendleton the NL MVP over Bonds in 1991?]

It is ethically indefensible for the journalists who cover baseball to vote for official awards that have an impact on players' financial rewards.

[Am I missing something? Where's the conflict of interest? The journalists are not a part of either side of that compensation equation.]

Their best argument goes something like this: If not us, then who? Who is better qualified to get it right than the (mostly) men who cover the game every day?

[Stinging rejoinder in 3... 2... 1...]

That argument is completely beside the point, of course.

[Nailed it! The casual-and-baseless-dismissive-hand-wave counter-argument. Flawlessly executed. Phil Sheridan = Clarence Darrow.]

If the MVP is the player with the best all-round statistical season...

[(also known as objective value)]

...a computer could figure that out.

[And this is bad? Didn't you just spend the first half of this article explaining why PEOPLE suck at selecting these award winners? What's left?]

But Howard got hot in September, hitting 11 home runs and driving in 32 runs to carry the Phillies into the playoffs. That's the very definition of valuable.

[...for SEPTEMBER. I have to check, but I'm pretty sure there are a few games played prior to that month. (buffering..... buffering.....) Yep, there are. Actually, as it turns out, most teams play LOTS of games before September. Weird.

Also, just to throw this out there, Pujols OPS'd 1.129 with 8 HRs and 27 RBIs in September. Also kinda good.]

The association seamheads love to throw around stats - OPS, VORP, ASPCA - to make a case for Pujols. That's all great. Yes, he struck out less and hit for a higher average. But Howard won actual baseball games in an honest-Abe pennant race. He had 11 more home runs than Pujols, scored five more runs than Pujols, and drove in 30 more runs than Pujols.

[Welcome to the Sheridan Family Farm! All the cherry-picking you could ever dream of! This is another solid logical tactic: Identify all of the evidence that cuts against your argument, and say that it's stupid. Then find a few points that support your claim and italicize them. QED.]

Notice there are no decimal points involved there, only whole numbers that made a difference in real baseball games.

[Decimal points are for pansies (I'm looking at you, Avogadro!). Everyone knows it. Using division to create some kind of averaged-value measurement of a player's performance over a 162 game-season??? This isn't Russia. Is this Russia? This isn't Russia.]

That takes care of the logic.

[Irony!]