The Vote
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
The Vote
Todd Zolecki
Rich Campbell, from the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance Star, explained why he didn't have Ryan Howard on his NL MVP ballot.
He makes some valid points, saying "there’s more to the vote than just homers, RBIs and the Phillies’ division title." He points to Howard's strikeouts, defense and batting average. He mentions win shares, runs created, OPS, VORP and EQA (sabermetrics for those not in the know). I only wish he had these explanations Monday when I called.
Certainly, there is more to a MVP than run production and division titles, it's just that producing runs and winning games are the two most important things in baseball. As far as the strikeouts (and in a sense, average), Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan said in February, regarding Howard, "You have to be focused on runs. How you get there doesn't actually matter. The shape of an offense doesn't actually matter. It's just a matter of how many runs. You see this throughout baseball. Take two different guys who go 10 for 50 over the course of two weeks. The guy who strikes out 25 times is going to look worse than the guy who grounds to second 25 times." Howard, who also scored a career high 105 runs, hit .251. No MVP had hit lower than .267 (Marty Marion in 1944). But Howard also hit .320 with runners in scoring position, 69 points higher than his overall average. He ranked 10th in the league in hitting with RISP with hitters with 100 more at-bats. Howard came up big when it mattered most from the beginning of the season to the end of the season. He produced.
I'm not saying Campbell should have had Howard first, second, third, fourth or even fifth or his ballot. But he should have had him somewhere. Tim Lincecum deserved the Cy Young, but he wasn't the sixth most valuable player in the National League, like he had on his ballot. Remove Lincecum from the Giants and the Giants are still a bad baseball team in the NL West. Johan Santana is a great pitcher who had a great second half, but Howard helped his team win every day. He carried the Phillies past Santana's Mets down the stretch. Campbell also had Chase Utley fourth on his ballot, although those who followed the Phillies closely knew that Howard, not Utley, came up bigger in the second half of the season.
And leading the majors in home runs and RBIs can't be dismissed. It's not easy to do. Only 13 players have had more than 146 RBIs in the past 25 years, which includes the steroid era: Manny Ramirez, Sammy Sosa (twice), Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Belle (twice), Andres Galarraga, Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz, Rafael Palmeiro, Ken Griffey Jr., Todd Helton, Mark McGwire and Howard. Take out the suspected steroid users from the group and how many are left?
I know some writers wouldn't dare criticize a fellow BBWAA member for their vote (huh?), but this is an open vote for a reason. Voters, when asked, are supposed to explain their votes. That's why the Dallas Morning News' Evan Grant talked with the Boston media yesterday about why he left Dustin Pedroia off his ballot. We could go on about this, but the vote is over. Albert Pujols won, which I have no problem with (the MLBPA also named Pujols its NL player of the year). Howard still finished second. Campbell's non-vote didn't change anything (which again is important to note). But I still feel it was an oversight not to have him on the ballot.
*
How come I have the feeling Philadelphians will be opening tons of gifts with Phillies gear inside this holiday season?
Here is one gift fans might be interested in: the 2008 World Series DVD.
Major League Baseball Productions and Shout! Factory collaborated on the effort, which is available nationwide Nov. 25 on DVD and Dec. 16 on Blu-ray in high definition. Terrence Howard, the Academy Award-nominated actor from Philadelphia, narrates the DVD, which will be sold at the clubhouse store at Citizens Bank Park, 1-877-GO-PHILS, MLB.com, Phillies.com and retailers nationwide. A press release yesterday said the DVD and Blu-ray editions can be pre-ordered now at MLB.com, Phillies.com, Amazon.com and various online retailers.
The DVD is $19.99. The Blu-ray is $29.99.
I got a peak at the DVD, and it's very, very impressive. (Full disclosure: I make a couple very brief appearances, but surprisingly I don't ruin the thing.)
*
The Phillies announced some changes to their scouting department.
hairball, last time I checked a run scored in the first inning counted the same as one scored in bottom of the 9th. If Howard doesn't hit one in first, game isn't tied for GWRBI in bottom of 9th. Let's just say that Howard is a great producer, but to be honest, Pujols was better this year and deserved the MVP. Leaving Howard off the top 10 is, however, stupid, unreasonable and just proves that not everyone who watches baseball can actually see baseball— jeff gross- Todd. Enjoy your work, but I just want to point out something about your Howard/Utley comparison. You reference that it is all about runs when defending Howard, and I would agree. However, you then proceed to imply that Utley should not have been 4th on a ballot and ahead of Howard. In fact Utley was 8th in the league in Runs Created (as defined by Bill James) while Howard was 25th. Howard may have come up bigger than Utley in September and July (Utley was much stronger in August), but that is what player of the month awards are for. MVP is based on an entire season and Utley added more value (i.e., runs and wins) to the Phillies than Howard over the course of the season by just about any unbiased statistical analysis. Keep up the good work!— PhillyGuyinNY
- the most important statistic in baseball for any hitter is RBI. If you are knocking in runs, you are putting your team on the board, getting them wins. all those other stupid crazy stats are meaningless if you don't have a big man like howard to knock them home. and nobody in the business knocks em home better than Ryan— Ryan
- Jeff - I would disagree that there with you that a 1st inning home run is as valuable as a 9th inning HR. That is why some players are clutch and some aren't. When the game is on the line, what do you bring to the table? If that's the case, then why not just have Lidge pitch the first inning of every game instead of the last? Because the end of the game is more important than the beginning.— Gary Varsho
- Point of matter was that he picked 1 player from each team. Logic of course is how can you have 2 MVPs for a league on one team (one of them has to be the MVP of their team and thus better). He picked Utley.— kr1spy
- So basically Howard had an "off" year. With the BA low which he did end up picking it up, it was just late in the season and tough to bring an avg. that was low to pretty high. Lets see Howards "off" year. BA - .251, HR - 48, RBI - 146. Now his MVP year. BA - .313, HR - 58, RBI 149. So Howard next year get that BA up 50pts and hit 10 more homers OK??!! lol. What about A-Rod getting it then disappearing in the playoffs??? Barry Bonds??? The only reason the voting is screwed up is because sports writers are screwed up. Side note- Howards MVP year he had 29 more hits than he did this past year. Just had more AB's this year. 10 of those 29 hits were homers by the way.— Prego614
- Todd, do you know if the DVD is the same one that Sports Illustrated is sending out with their Phillies' Champions package? Yeah, I went a little overboard, I don't care!!— CMc62480
- Stop. Stop saying the strikeouts don't matter. Did anyone cringe every time we had a runner on 2nd in the series and the heart of our order couldn't manage to get any kind of contact to get the runner to third? All that lack of contact absolutely impacts our ability to generate runs. Don't get me wrong, we won, I'm happy. I'm not saying Howard et al aren't huge talents. But I'm tired of people pretending that a strikeout is not worse than a groundout.— Greg G
- cheesesteak17-thank you for the profound and true stmt. Philadelphians just hate everything black. Imagine if McNabb was shown love and not disdain possibly he would be better focused. Imagine if Howard was not paid 900k after an MVP season possibly he would have more motivation to and focus early in the season and have that 75 HR 200 Rbi season he is capable of.....— Truth
- Jimmymack.. this is solely pointed at you because i couldn't read anymore after yours. David Wright had an INSANE year. His OPS+ was 141. His OBP was near 400. He is an excellent 3rd baseman. His team was in it until the 2nd to last day of the season. How can he NOT be a good choice? It's not his fault the bullpen blew like 50 of their games. Also, Manny was absolutely UNHUMAN when he was with the Dodgers, and they made the playoffs. Why not him? Howard had 2 good months out of 6, and you think he deserved to be in the top 2? Without Howard, an average first baseman helps the Phils alot more than he did for the 4 months that he tanked. He wasn't even walking like his usual self. Granted when Howard was hot, no1 was better, but that was for 2 months. Every game of the 162 has the same weight. Don't be blinded by the 2nd half.— tpcapone30
- Strikeouts DON'T matter. Are ppl on this blog eally foolish enough to believe to trade 48/146 59/149 seasons for .290/25/95? PLEASE.... Nobody pitches around .290/25/95. It doesn't effect the mechanics of the lineup. Utley would potentially be an avg player if he wasn't backed up by Howard. If the Phillies had a potent #5 Howard would be 25 pts higher in avg alone....The guy gets nothing to hit if you actually pay attn to his hits/HR's most aren't strikes. He's not up there to walk thogh he's up thee to drive in runs per his coach. WAKE UP!!— Truth
- "I certainly don't question Ryan Howard's offensive acheivements. However, you don't mention the fact that Ryan Howard was dead last amongst 1st basemen in defense for 2008 - with 19 errors...." You sir....are an IDIOT— ILUVPHILLYCITYOFLOSERS
- Truth - its not a black thing. Please stop it. My one issue with Howard's strike outs, not so much how many he has, but that its usually while swinging at really bad pitches. If he can adjust to laying off that down and away pitch that ends up coming in the majority of his AB's, he would strike out at least 50 times less, walk 50 times more, and in the long run see more pitches to hit. He does plenty with the pitches he does hit, I just wish he would be more selective in some of the pitches he swings at. Stay away from the low and away breaking ball. I think Milt should work on that with him in the Spring.— Gary Varsho
- Strike outs do tend to be overrated, but RBI are even more overrated when used as a sign of value added to a team. RBI are a function of how many men are on base when you come up. Thank guys like Utley, Rollins, Victorino and Werth for Howards RBI totals – without them, Howard doesn’t have the RBI and according to this logic is not the MVP. Hmm… that doesn’t sound too good for Howard’s value! To say Howard’s RBI make him the most valuable player in the league, I’d like to hear the case that another hitter hitting in his lineup position would not have driven in as many runs. And that is hard to do when guys like Utley and Pujols and many others have substantially higher batting averages/OBPs and a comparable or better SLG%.— PhillyGuyinNY
- Strike outs do tend to be overrated, but RBI are even more overrated when used as a sign of value added to a team. RBI are a function of how many men are on base when you come up. Thank guys like Utley, Rollins, Victorino and Werth for Howards RBI totals – without them, Howard doesn’t have the RBI and according to this logic is not the MVP. Hmm… that doesn’t sound too good for Howard’s value! To say Howard’s RBI make him the most valuable player in the league, I’d like to hear the case that another hitter hitting in his lineup position would not have driven in as many runs. And that is hard to do when guys like Utley and Pujols and many others have substantially higher batting averages/OBPs and a comparable or better SLG%.— PhillyGuyinNY
