Justin Verlander AL MVP: Why the Writers Got It Wrong

It could be—and indeed has been—argued that Justin Verlander's selection as the 2011 American League MVP is yet another step away from the rigidity of traditionalism by Major League Baseball's writers. They will call it evidence for their new-found liberal bent, and even point to last year's choice of Felix Hernandez for AL Cy Young and call it a trend. 

But who among us truly believes the voters have renounced their pre-Sabermetric allegiances? Does anything about Verlander's selection speak to the influence of empirical data on the voting process?

The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is that Justin Verlander won simply because there was no clear-cut MVP winner among the position players.

For those not in the know, a "clear-cut" winner is simply this: a hitter leading in major offensive categories, usually RBI and home runs, on a playoff-bound team. Jose Bautista most closely fits this description, with the unfortunate exception of playing on a team that did not contend. Jacoby Ellsbury was by far the most productive player on both sides of the ball, as the numbers bear, but his chances went the way of the Red Sox's playoff berth. 

Of course, the voting instructions for the MVP awards do not mandate that a candidate play for a contending team. In fact, it states the opposite: "The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier." Yet this simple instruction is often misconstrued, as Jerry Crasnick demonstrated in his latest article for ESPN.com, in which he justified the selection by stating, even after he himself quoted the very same instruction, "...there's nothing to say [the voter] can't or shouldn't consider where a player's team finishes in the standings."

Do I need to point out that the instruction "The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier" is stating exactly that the voters shouldn't consider the standings?

Not all of the blame should be placed on the writers, however. The term "Most Valuable Player" is intentionally (and notoriously) enigmatic. It may or may not refer to the best player in the league. The "Valuable" part is stressed by those who require the player to be on a winning club, because a player isn't valuable, by their estimation, if the team isn't winning.

This is backwards thinking, of course, since a player's value increases as the number of quality players around him decreases, thus making him most valuable on a team with the least amount of quality players, i.e., a bad team. So those who stress value are actually ignoring it, and simply voting for the best player on a winning team. 

So if there's no consensus as to what exactly a Most Valuable Player even looks like, then why are so many—myself included—up in arms about Justin Verlander winning? 

The answer is nearly as complicated as the award itself, and can be approached from any of a number of angles, but is probably best stated as follows: The MVP and the Cy Young Award are on equal footing in both baseball culture and their impact on a player's legacy, and as such, one is not more important than the other.

When we talk about Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux, we don't lament their lack of MVP awards precisely because the Cy Young Award is its analog. And why shouldn't it be?

Pitching—particularly starting pitching—is a different animal. Starting pitchers only play once every five days, give or take, and rarely play the whole game. And in the American League they don't even bat! 

Given those stark differences, why would any award recognizing on-field accomplishments consider both pitchers and position players? Comparing Justin Verlander to Jacoby Ellsbury is like comparing, well, cats and socks. 

I fear that some may mistake my argument against giving a pitcher the MVP award for an argument against the value of pitchers in relation to position players, especially since so many commentators do, whether intentionally or not, portray pitchers as somehow lazy or not fully a member of the team for the fact that they don't play every day. Such condescension is unnecessary and untrue. Justin Verlander was without question the best pitcher in baseball this year, and obviously an integral part of the Tigers' success. 

But his role in that success is by definition much different than that of an everyday player. The Cy Young award exists so that pitchers can be recognized without having to try to quantify their value as compared to that of a position player. (And before you start caterwauling, yes, I am aware of WAR, or Wins Above Replacement. It's a nice reference, but I am not a fan of theoretical statistics, which is exactly what WAR is. Yes, it is a calculation of empirical data, but it converts that data at arbitrary rates and produces theoretical numbers—"what would happen if"—and, given variables such as scheduling and hot/cold streaks, there's simply no way to test the results)

So by giving Verlander both the Cy Young and the MVP, the writers essentially gave him the same award twice, while also depriving a truly deserving player of a great honor. While everyone in Tigerland is undoubtedly thrilled by this turn, there's no doubt the writers got this one wrong. It wasn't simply that they chose a pitcher, it was the fact that they based their decisions on the same tired, uncritical dogma they always have, despite loud claims to the contrary. 

We can always hope that they get it right next year, but it's more likely that they've just found new ways to sell us the same old crap.