NL MVP Voting & Moneyball
November 29th, 2009 by Tank
Below is the NL MVP tally for this year; Prince Fielder was a not-too-shabby fourth. Given how much of the book Moneyball was devoted to Billy Beane’s mocking of Prince Fielder, and preference for Nick Swisher, does this constitute another blow to Beane’s reputation for astute judgment, if not to sabrmetrics in general? Swisher was a valuable contributor for the Yankees this year, but hardly worthy of MVP consideration like Teammates Jeter and Teixeira, both of whom were in the top four of the AL balloting IIRC.
| Player | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hanley Ramirez, FLA | 15 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 233 | |||
| Prince Fielder, MIL | 5 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 203 |
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Um… something’s missing?
Regarding the MVP voting, though… Pujols (unanimous) and Mauer (inexplicably not unanimous) have to be amongst the most obvious twosome to win the award in their respective leagues in the same year. Off the tops of your heads, or even with some research, has there ever been another year where the two league MVPs were *so* obvious? And that clown in Seattle (I think it was?) who voted for Miguel Cabrera over Joe Mauer? Dude… somebody spiked his Starbucks latte - cuz no way he was thinking straight when he filled out that ballot.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Don’t forget the other 1st round picks from the 2002 draft that were players Beane never would have considered:
BJ Upton, Zack Greinke, Scott Kazmir, Cole Hamels, James Loney, & Matt Cain….what a bad year not to consider HS players