Can't say that's a huge surprise.  Maybe the margin of victory, but not the winning itself.

I can't believe I've agreed with all the major awards so far.

It took Heyman about 10 seconds on TBN to acknowledge the Reds winning the division was one of the reasons he voted for Votto. And then he said Halladay should have finished in the top three in the MVP balloting because he played for a team that made the playoffs.
So the MVP is apparently a team award, and the Cy Young is an individual award.
Votto was gracious during his interview, BTW.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (11/22/2010 10:27 pm)

tkihshbt wrote:

I agree, Darth. I think voters need to decide if they are picking the best player or the playoff team with the best player.

In a better world, Pujols and Votto would be co-MVPs. They were the exact same player.

I'm not annoyed Votto won the award. It's the hypocrisy that frustrates me. You can certainly make a case for any one of the top three finishers (though Cargo's splits indicate he's a Coors Light guy), but to claim like Heyman did yesterday you voted for one guy over the other mostly because his team made the playoffs and then in the next breath insist the voters "have gotten it right on all the awards so far" when the Mariners couldn't see first place with a periscope is b.s.
Heyman is just a pompous jerk. He took a shot at Strauss for voting for Pujols, like he plucked the name out of a hat or something. Come on. It's not like Strauss voted for Pedro Feliz.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (11/23/2010 1:37 pm)

I think it is fair to vote for the best player on playoff teams.  If you cant get your team to the playoffs how valueable are you?  CY is different because it is an award for the best pitcher not the most valueable pitcher.

APRTW wrote:

I think it is fair to vote for the best player on playoff teams.  If you cant get your team to the playoffs how valueable are you?  CY is different because it is an award for the best pitcher not the most valueable pitcher.

The BBWAA purposely leaves the criteria open to interpretation, but I've always considered "most valuable" and "best" to be a matter of semantics, AP. The argument for Votto is "Where would the Reds have finished without him?," implying that it wouldn't have been first place.
As I said, I would have voted for Votto, but let's take our (at least my) emotional prejudices toward Pujols out of the argument and say you can just as easily make the argument that the Rockies would have been a fourth or fifth place club without Gonzalez, and there's no way of determining if that's is true because you're trying to make a case for something that didn't happen. It's akin to trying to prove a negative, like "Would Rosie O'Donnell's body odor be less intense if she wasn't so fat?" Yeah. Probably. Maybe. But she's fat. So she sweats. Profusely. So she smells like a bath towel that's been left in a middle school gym locker for three months.
If you vote for a guy for one award because his team made the playoffs, you can't say it at the same time you're pimping another guy whose team finished 30 games out.

artie_fufkin wrote:

APRTW wrote:

I think it is fair to vote for the best player on playoff teams.  If you cant get your team to the playoffs how valueable are you?  CY is different because it is an award for the best pitcher not the most valueable pitcher.

The BBWAA purposely leaves the criteria open to interpretation, but I've always considered "most valuable" and "best" to be a matter of semantics, AP. The argument for Votto is "Where would the Reds have finished without him?," implying that it wouldn't have been first place.
As I said, I would have voted for Votto, but let's take our (at least my) emotional prejudices toward Pujols out of the argument and say you can just as easily make the argument that the Rockies would have been a fourth or fifth place club without Gonzalez, and there's no way of determining if that's is true because you're trying to make a case for something that didn't happen. It's akin to trying to prove a negative, like "Would Rosie O'Donnell's body odor be less intense if she wasn't so fat?" Yeah. Probably. Maybe. But she's fat. So she sweats. Profusely. So she smells like a bath towel that's been left in a middle school gym locker for three months.
If you vote for a guy for one award because his team made the playoffs, you can't say it at the same time you're pimping another guy whose team finished 30 games out.

I dont think a player can be valueable on a non playoff team.  Maybe if they just miss the playoffs but that is about it.  However the pitching award, CY goes to the best pitching preformance.  If the MVP was supposed to go to the best hitter every time they should call it the TY Cobb.

APRTW wrote:

I dont think a player can be valueable on a non playoff team.  Maybe if they just miss the playoffs but that is about it.  However the pitching award, CY goes to the best pitching preformance.  If the MVP was supposed to go to the best hitter every time they should call it the TY Cobb.

If the "best pitching performance" results in a 13-12 record, then the American League must have some tremendous hitters.

I am not disagree that 13-12 doesnt win you a CY.  I was just airing my opinion on the differences in meaning between MVP and CY.