November 18, 2003 at 03:12AM View BBCode
voters forced to make a smart decision cause no players who fit the standard "best player on a team that made the playoffs or came really close to making the playoffs and didn't have a lot of good other hitters around him" were there.November 18, 2003 at 03:15AM View BBCode
yeah, finally they had to give the MVP to the player who played best, not to the player who was on a team with no hitting, but was good anyway, as you saidNovember 18, 2003 at 03:53AM View BBCode
Did you notice how close Shannon Stewart got to the MVP (4th place in the voting). The voters definitely aren't getting smarter, but sometimes they back into the correct choice.November 18, 2003 at 05:21PM View BBCode
to give the award to arod- you have to say he was far and away better than any player on a team that even had a remote shot at the playoffs.November 18, 2003 at 06:14PM View BBCode
Well, let's open up that story. "ARod has a negative value on his team." I assume you say this because ARod is paid a lot of money by the Rangers, money which the Rangers could possibly have spent elsewhere (say, on pitching), so he's handicapping their personnel movements with his contract.November 18, 2003 at 07:02PM View BBCode
one unimportant part of the post and jump on it- it is arod's pay has an indirect negative impact on his MVP. but just because Arod is overpayed does not mean he is not MVP.November 18, 2003 at 08:55PM View BBCode
The MVP award was created for the player who was most valuable to his team while having a good year. It was only recently that voters started going by stats and stats alone. Technically if 2 players are close the player on the better team should get the award.November 18, 2003 at 09:06PM View BBCode
And no one's going to speculate about how Alex Rodriguez has gained nearly 40 pounds or so ever since he started in 1996, simply because there are so many sportswriters who are under the impression that pretty-boy is the greatest thing since sliced bread.November 18, 2003 at 10:23PM View BBCode
oh god no, keep your bullshit speculation of steiroids in the other topic, i dont want to hear about it. MVP doesnt mean "most valuable player to your team" it means "most valuable player" and i ask you, if you were giving contracts out next year, and you thought "hey, who deservs the highest contract" it would be A rod.November 18, 2003 at 10:24PM View BBCode
oh, in the NL was it gagne? i just heard that on the radio. that would be dumb if he wonNovember 18, 2003 at 10:44PM View BBCode
While I'm not convinced that Arod was the best player this year, I'm not convinced he wasn't. It's not fair to say the writers gave a career MVP... arod was #1 on less than half the ballots. Fact is, many players had very good years in the AL, while no one had an outstanding year (as compared to the years by Bonds and Pujols in the NL, where there were two clearly defined candidates.) No pennant races were that tight, so it's not as if one player with a great second half to carry his team to victory could win it (see Miguel Tejada.) I mean, four writers voted for Shannon Stewart! Clearly it was a crap shoot of a race, and when history looks back on it, no one will really grimace when they see arod's name as the winner. He was a good choice. Maybe not the perfect choice, but then again, maybe there wasn't one.November 18, 2003 at 10:46PM View BBCode
no bonds won the al. and yea the award is about "value." to me that means the person that meant the most to his team. in baseball its really hard to say that one guy carries the team. but i think that the award should be for the guy that means the most to his team, not who is paid the most, not who may have put up the best numbers, it goes to the guy who means the most to his team. ill give u an example. since i watched every yankee playoff game this postseason i think that this is a pretty good example. andy pettitte wuz the yanks post season mvp. every time the yanks needed a win they handed him the ball and he got the job done. he wuz very impressive when pitching after a yankee loss. do i think that he wuz the best pitcher on the team? no, i would say that would go to rivera. i think that shannon stewart should be 2nd or 3rd in the voting because he turned the twins around and lead them to a playoff berth at the trade deadline, the only reason i think that he shouldnt win it is cuz he wuz traded. i think that another good candidate for al mvp would have been roy halladay. yea i have heard but he has delgado and wells. he also has a horrible pen, horrible defense, and no other significant threats in that lineup besides wells and delgado. he logged so many innings and still had a good era and a great record. he wuz also the al's best pitcher. but he gets over looked since he is a pitcher. if u wanna give arod an award give him most outstanding player, not most valuble bcuz to me he has the least value of any star in the league. im not saying that guys like enrique wilson r more valuble than him cuz they make less im just saying that out of the stars he helps his team the least. o and the best player in the game right now is bonds, not arod.November 18, 2003 at 10:46PM View BBCode
In the NL, bonds won. Thank goodness it wasn't gagne.November 18, 2003 at 10:48PM View BBCode
Last time I checked, happy, you have no control on where or WHAT I post. Too bad. You have your opinions; I have mine. Just because yours are wrong doesn't give you any right to try and tell me where mine belong. :lol:November 18, 2003 at 11:10PM View BBCode
gagne got sixth. bonds was the only reason san fran got to the playoffs. st louis would still have not made the playoffs without pujols and the braves would have made it easily without sheffield. la would have been nowhere without gagne so i think he should of at least beat thome. of course i still like the idea of most valuable player to his team philosophyNovember 19, 2003 at 12:00AM View BBCode
I just can't figure out how the fact that the Rangers only won 71 games makes all of the games they played meaningless. Maybe without ARod they would have only won 60 games, or 65 (somewhere between those two seems about right). People have been making a big deal about the fact that only one other player from a last place team has ever won the MVP award (Andre Dawson, 1987, as most of you probably already know), without mentioning one very important fact: THE AL WEST ONLY HAS 4 TEAMS NOW. How many MVP's have played on 4th place teams or lower? Ripken in 91, Yount in 89, Banks in 58 and 59. There are probably more, though not a lot more. The point is that last place is a term which only has meaning relative to its era, and it's a lot easier to finish in last place now (especially in the AL West) than it has been historically.November 19, 2003 at 12:11AM View BBCode
yea and the AL west is a pretty stacked division but how valuble can u be if ur team only wins 71 games. and if u think about it there would only be about a 6 to 11 game drop off in wins for the rangers without arod. and theoretically if that money wuz spent on 3 or 4 good pitchers they would be a better team. of course theoretically communial living is a good idea but then u have jonestown...November 19, 2003 at 02:39AM View BBCode
you are valuable cause you win games for your team, even if the rest of your team sucks.November 19, 2003 at 02:44AM View BBCode
yea but in reality w/out arod texas may have only lost 5 to 10 more games. anyway for pujols to win the mvp with ur thing a lot of things have to happen. anyway i think that arod's huge contract hurts texas in another way, now they have some good prospects, blalock, texiera, etc. and they may not be able to re sign them when the time comes becuz the r locked into a insane contract. arod even said around the trade deadline that he didnt wanna be a ranger anymore, which is no skin of his back cuz he gets the same money wherever he goes. the problem for texas is even if they can move him they still with have to pay some of his salary and it will prolly have to be a big chunk for anyone to take him.November 19, 2003 at 02:50AM View BBCode
you can't judge his on-field value by how much he is paid, that was a GM decision. I agere with whoever said he is not that overpaid, he is one of the best players in the game. I would probably pay Bonds more (but on a short-term contract), cause Bonds is so dominant. They would have lost a lot more without him, cause other players stats would have gone down, and instead of a home run or hit in many instances they would have had an out, instead of a 4-run inning, a 0-run inning. They would have had some crap minor leaguer in his place.November 19, 2003 at 03:14AM View BBCode
but when the time comes when blalock and texiera and their other prospects have developed and texas cant pay them bcuz they have arod, well its gonna be arod and a bunch of crappy minor leagues playing every other position which is A LOT worse. that team is better off without arod.November 19, 2003 at 03:20AM View BBCode
Since the Rangers have become my favorite major league team leaving in Texas here is my idea. They trade A Rod to the Cubs for some of their pitching prospects (yes they have more) and Alex Gonzalez (will never forgive him for game 6 error).November 19, 2003 at 03:28AM View BBCode
Some sportswriter around here (I think Boswell) said A-Rod should be traded to the Orioles, where the O's pick up aruond $15M of his salary, and give up Julio (Rangers need a closer, Juliio has a lot of value), Roberts (to play SS), and some of the pitching prospects (Lopez, Dubose, Ainsworth, 2 other guys I think, 2 or 3 of those players).November 19, 2003 at 03:39AM View formatted