Come here. Sit down. Let's talk. I'm disappointed but not angry.
Major League Baseball announced the recipients of the awards last night. Los Angeles' Shohei Ohtani became the 11th player to win the award unanimously and first since Mike Trout in 2014), as he was named the American League's Most Valuable Player.
I don't have any issues with either of the winners. The full voting breakdown is the problem.
The BBWAA revealed how many votes each player had in two separate articles. The breakdown of the American League.
Nothing odd. Kyle Tucker got a vote. I can understand why the team with the best record in the American League would want to place AustinMeadows there.
The National League is next.
Freddie was one of the favorites for the award in the middle of August, so I am surprised he fell so far. Bryan Reynolds was represented well. Is it interesting that Burnes won the Cy Young Award, but finished with less points than he deserved? That is interesting, right? I don't have much of a probl. What is that?
LaMonte Wade Jr.? He got an award? How? How? How?
I don't have anything against Wade. He was a great player for the San Francisco Giants this year, but he was also a rotation piece for the Giants, who used a lot of different players in the outfield. He played in only a small number of games this year. He recorded a rWAR of 1.2. An rWAR of 2.0 is considered to be a player capable of being a starter. Maybe he would have reached 2.0 if he had played every game of the season. It is questionable to suggest that he was one of the 10 best players in the National League because he did not record enough plate appearances to qualify.
There is an option at the bottom of the articles to view individual ballots. You will want to click on that to understand how Wade was able to get a vote. You can find Wade's name at the bottom of Andrew Baggarly's ballot by surveying each name listed on each ballot or pressing "Ctrl+F".
Baggarly is a writer for The Athletic. Baggarly would lean in favor of the team he spends so much time with. That is normal. Brandon Crawford received four first-place votes and two of them came from the writers of the Giants. We expect to see this kind of favoritism, whether it be for a player like Baggarly or against a player like me. As long as I live, I should never be given an MVP ballot.
The most egregious example of this would be when a writer for the NY Post left Pedro Martinez off his Most Valuable Player ballot in 1999. The pitcher led the league with a 2.07 earned run average. He had 23 victories. He became the ninth pitcher in MLB history to record multiple 300-K seasons and led the American League with 313 strikeouts. King did not convince him of the merits of his candidacy. Ivan Rodriguez was the winner of the 1999 American League Most Valuable Player race. Who knows if King had not played a role in how he filled out his ballot, Rodriguez would have finished with more first-place votes.
Baggarly put Crawford as his top option for the award. He gives a nice explanation as to why he put Crawford at the top, explaining that he values defense more than most writers. I understand, but that doesn't explain why he put Wade in at 10.
Wade was not a great defender. He was 44th in MLB among players who spent at least 500 hours in the outfield with a 2.0 UZR/ 150. Wade is third among Giants outfielders alone, behind Austin Slater and Steven Duggar. Wade wasn't a bright spot on the team.
If Baggarly really wanted to show his love for the Giants, he should have given the final vote to the player who had the better offensive numbers than Wade did in more games. Jacob Stallings and J.T. Realmuto were great behind the dish, but not as great as Posey. Why not him?
It is hard to defend Wade's inclusion on any award. You say that Wade was more valuable to the Giants than Nolan Arenado was to the Cards. Is Nick Castellanos more valuable than the Reds? Is it more valuable for Freddie to be with the Braves? I don't buy it. Wade was good this year. I hope he stays with the team for a long time. He is a solid bat and versatile defender that any team would love to have, but he was not a top 10 player in the league this year.
