Losing Team Getting Series MVP

[Shadoshryke]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

Baseball is rather unique among the major sports in that what a given player does is (largely) independent of what the other players on his team do.

However, if you go back over the thread, you will see that the same standard for MVP happens in every pro sport. That is why players get paid and traded based on their own performance, not on team performance. You can have a great quarterback on a team with a horrible defense. That QB will be highly valued, and will be fought over as a free agent or during drafts, even if his team has a 4-12 record two years in a row.

Team record does not necessarily reflect individual players, otherwise we would not track individual players stats so religiously.

[Matt Arnold]

Originally Posted by Shadoshryke

However, if you go back over the thread, you will see that the same standard for MVP happens in every pro sport. That is why players get paid and traded based on their own performance, not on team performance. You can have a great quarterback on a team with a horrible defense. That QB will be highly valued, and will be fought over as a free agent or during drafts, even if his team has a 4-12 record two years in a row.

Team record does not necessarily reflect individual players, otherwise we would not track individual players stats so religiously.

The biggest difference between baseball and the other sports is the impact that an individual can have. A great fangraphs piece on this last summer: Let?s Imagine a Baseball-Playing LeBron James | FanGraphs Baseball

Essentially, the top NBA players are between 2-4 times as valuable as even the top baseball players are. I imagine a top QB would be similar for football. There's simply no individual baseball player that comes close to the value of a top guy in the other sports.

[majesty95]

I've always had a problem with the "wording" of the award. By definition, a most "valuable" player should either be the player who earns the most money or the player who is most useful or important to his team.

However, even those of you who contend the award is given to the "best overall player" are incorrect. Take 1999 for example. Ivan Rodriquez was not the best player in the league. Hell, he wasn't even the best player on his own team (Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez had better seasons statistically) but Pudge won the award because he was deemed "most valuable" to his team. (For those of you that want to contend he won because of WAR, fine, he led the team but was 6th in the league and WAR wasn't even an accepted metric at the time by the vast majority of the league.) He's not the only example.

More to my point, here is the actual criteria used in MVP voting:

“The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931: (1) actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense; (2) number of games played; (3) general character, disposition, loyalty and effort; (4) former winners are eligible; and (5) members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.”

I agree that "sometimes" the award is given to the "best overall player" but sometimes it is given to the most "valuable" player. It is supposed to be "most valuable" according to the terms and the English definition of "valuable". People that vote for "best overall player" (even though it happens), IMO, are just flat wrong.

In respect to the playoffs and a single series (in this game), I think the VAST majority of the time it should go to the best player (for ease in coding) on the winning team. I'm not sure they can even code it to be objective enough to find a great player on a losing team who was super valuable to a team that just missed out on winning the series. For simplicity and to be "accurate" more often than not, I'd just as soon prefer to see it always go to the winning team. Just giving it to the "best" player regardless of winning or losing is A. not very realistic (how many times in the history of the award has it gone to a losing player?) and B. doesn't meet the criteria of possessing actual value.

Let's pretend you spend a ton of money and buy all of the best ingredients for a seafood dish making competition. You may have the most "valuable" (monetarily) dish in terms of ingredients. But if you don't win and everyone wants to buy the winning recipe and not yours then your value just plummeted. Maybe it wasn't the King Crab's fault. Maybe he fell victim to the cook using too much garlic or too sour of lemons but his value still tanked nonetheless.

It doesn't matter how well you perform, if your team doesn't win, your value is severely diminished. That's why they give trophies to the team that wins on the field and not the one with the highest payroll or the "paper champion" before the season. Saying that winning does not matter in the context of an award given in a competition where winning is ultimately the only thing that matters is completely non-sensical.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

PS: Yeah, Oliva deserved that over Killebrew. How many of Killebrew's RBI were due to Oliva batting .538 in front if him, I wonder.

Really? Oliva had 7 hits and Killebrew had 11 RBI. And Oliva getting on base does nothing if he doesn't either A. find a way to score by himself or B. get batted in by a teammmate.

I think an argument could be made if Killebrew has 7-8 RBI. But it looked like The Killer knocked home everyone he had a chance too every time he had a chance too. What more could he do? And yes, Oliva is possibly hindered by being earlier in the order but Killebrew is in a more "valuable" spot in the order. Oliva should have been a power hitter if he wanted to win MVP awards

[Shadoshryke]

Originally Posted by Matt Arnold

The biggest difference between baseball and the other sports is the impact that an individual can have. A great fangraphs piece on this last summer: Let?s Imagine a Baseball-Playing LeBron James | FanGraphs Baseball

Essentially, the top NBA players are between 2-4 times as valuable as even the top baseball players are. I imagine a top QB would be similar for football. There's simply no individual baseball player that comes close to the value of a top guy in the other sports.

We also have to note, in this case, that NFL and NBA both have a larger consistent following in the US. At one time, many clubs in the US had considered closing and the MLB was trying to figure out what to do with the dwindling fan base as opposed to other sports. I know far more NBA and NFL fans than I do MLB fans nationwide - and I am a US and World traveler. I have friends in the UK that are NFL and Soccer fans, but look at me funny when I talk Baseball. They would prefer to talk Cricket if anything.

This is why most have a have a contract value that is higher. Also, NFL average price per ticket per game (with 16 games almost always on the verge of sell out for most games) is about $76. Average ticket price per game for MLB (with 162 games per year with an average of 1/2 of the seats filled) is $27. This means that each NFL team is going to make more money in 16 games, with less overhead.

NFL and NBA marketing also have far higher sales nationwide, which is kind of funny since a lot of that is for groups that want to use the paraphernalia them as "gang identifiers". It is more common to see "bling" that is NBA or NFL items than MLB in most of the nation.

So this is why a quarterback can get more money, but I don't see him as getting more notoriety than a strong pitcher in the appropriate fan circles, while batters get that Running Back notoriety and leading sackers get that defensive player notoriety.

But maybe that is just my perception.

[Shadoshryke]

Originally Posted by majesty95

Really? Oliva had 7 hits and Killebrew had 11 RBI. And Oliva getting on base does nothing if he doesn't either A. find a way to score by himself or B. get batted in by a teammmate.

I think an argument could be made if Killebrew has 7-8 RBI. But it looked like The Killer knocked home everyone he had a chance too every time he had a chance too. What more could he do? And yes, Oliva is possibly hindered by being earlier in the order but Killebrew is in a more "valuable" spot in the order. Oliva should have been a power hitter if he wanted to win MVP awards

Question - Did you have stealing disabled on that team? This plays a factor in RBIs as well, if a runner steals in a way to get them closer to a scoring position, or a bunter hits a person forward just before the RBI hitter gets to bat.
RBIs have a good amount of "team" effort in them, which is why they not just seen as the work of the individual batter.

[ThePretender]

Originally Posted by majesty95

Really? Oliva had 7 hits and Killebrew had 11 RBI. And Oliva getting on base does nothing if he doesn't either A. find a way to score by himself or B. get batted in by a teammmate.

I think an argument could be made if Killebrew has 7-8 RBI. But it looked like The Killer knocked home everyone he had a chance too every time he had a chance too. What more could he do? And yes, Oliva is possibly hindered by being earlier in the order but Killebrew is in a more "valuable" spot in the order. Oliva should have been a power hitter if he wanted to win MVP awards

And that teammate ends up with a lonely single or double and 0 RBI if Olivia doesn't get a base hit in the first place. It works both ways.

[Shadoshryke]

Originally Posted by majesty95

More to my point, here is the actual criteria used in MVP voting:

“The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931: (1) actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense; (2) number of games played; (3) general character, disposition, loyalty and effort; (4) former winners are eligible; and (5) members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.”

I agree that "sometimes" the award is given to the "best overall player" but sometimes it is given to the most "valuable" player. It is supposed to be "most valuable" according to the terms and the English definition of "valuable". People that vote for "best overall player" (even though it happens), IMO, are just flat wrong.

Remember that we are talking the most outstanding contribution to a team, as laid out by "(1) actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense;". This is why the definition from multiple sites is as I gave it.

Now, please understand that I don't really have a care either way, but if you have a problem with how MVP is decided, then you might want to consider that it is set based on how MVP is handled in the MLB. MLB and other Pro sports have the approach that I gave earlier in the thread. Understand that if the Pro sports took your side, and you were on the other side, I would be explaining the way the Pro system uses it.

If MVP is handled this way in RL, why would the game design, in practice, handle it any other way?

Maybe, instead, we should appeal to the Dev team and Matt to adjust the system to allow participating human players to participate in the vote for the MVP for a season and a series the way we do for the All-Star team.

[majesty95]

Originally Posted by Shadoshryke

Remember that we are talking the most outstanding contribution to a team, as laid out by "(1) actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense;". This is why the definition from multiple sites is as I gave it.

Now, please understand that I don't really have a care either way, but if you have a problem with how MVP is decided, then you might want to consider that it is set based on how MVP is handled in the MLB. MLB and other Pro sports have the approach that I gave earlier in the thread. Understand that if the Pro sports took your side, and you were on the other side, I would be explaining the way the Pro system uses it.

If MVP is handled this way in RL, why would the game design, in practice, handle it any other way?

Maybe, instead, we should appeal to the Dev team and Matt to adjust the system to allow participating human players to participate in the vote for the MVP for a season and a series the way we do for the All-Star team.

It's absolutely NOT handled as it is in real life. Show me examples of how many times a losing player won the MVP in a series. Then show me how many of those were when his team won 1 game. It is extremely rate in real life but I've seen it quite a bit in the game. Id prefer to never see it vs seeing it too often. It just doesn't make sense.

[olivertheorem]

By any chance, can you post the stats from both teams for the series where Allison won MVP just so we can see how he did?

[majesty95]

I don't think so. I'm on to the next year. Am I still able to pull them up somehow?

[majesty95]

Here's another one that doesn't make sense even though it is the winning team.

Merritt only pitched one game and it was Game 3 but he got the series MVP. Now the case could be made that he spark a 3-game winning streak that rallied the team from behind 0-2. However, wouldn't Gullett get it in this scenario 99% of the time? He pitched twice and was a key reason the team won the deciding game. Maybe it has happened, but how often does a pitched that only pitched one game in the middle of the series win the MVP?

To me, it seems like the criteria to pick the MVP is weighted too heavily on AVG or ERA. I'm sure had Gullett had 2 wins then he would have won it, but considering his win game in the deciding game it would seem to carry more weight. Same thing with the Killebrew example. Harmon had 11 RBI but was seemingly passed over for Oliva because of AVG.

How does this have anything to do with the losing team getting the MVP? I just wonder if the metric used to decide is too simplistic so it picks illogical players based of a certain metric. Maybe its not possible to code in weighted games like deciding games but it would probably improve if it is possible. I think weighting it more to the winning team is necessary though (probably like 95%). And I think weighing IP for pitchers should be higher. Now the Game 4 SP could have won in that scenario so I'm not sure it fixes the issue but I'm trying to think out possible solutions...

[olivertheorem]

On this one, I'll agree with you. Not sure how Merritt won that over Gullett (or even Nolan and maybe Bench).

I don't know if you can go look up past playoff series or not. I thought you could but have no idea where you'd look.

[majesty95]

Yeah I think if the metric used could be refined it would help with the selections. Not sure if it is possible to add in factors like which game they performed in but I think it's too heavily weighted on ERA and AVG for sure

[Shadoshryke]

Originally Posted by olivertheorem

On this one, I'll agree with you. Not sure how Merritt won that over Gullett (or even Nolan and maybe Bench).

I don't know if you can go look up past playoff series or not. I thought you could but have no idea where you'd look.

By the resulting statistics, it seems pretty clear. He effectively pitched a 9 inning shut out against a team that was previously dominating his team, rallying the Reds to dominate NY. It was clear NY was dominant up to that game.

9 innings pitched as a starter, with a 0.00 ERA after it. That is downright amazing. Normally you only see on 0.00 ERA on a pitcher that has under 5 IP. 6 straight stikeouts vs 9 innings is actually a better average per IP than any of the other pitchers in the game.

However, I think this could have been given to J. Bench, with the best AVG and SLG percentages, with over the Average number of AB (8.8). You can't really consider Jimenez or Milner due to limited number of AB, because they both had well below the average number of AB.

I think it is because he would be credited with setting the Rally tone that turned the series around.

[majesty95]

I understand that he may have been just what they needed to rally to a win. I just don't know if that's realistic. Has a pitcher who only pitched one game in the middle of a series ever been given an MVP?

Conversely, what if a player who played only one game, say Game 3 (maybe do to an injury or a platoon), hit for the cycle in that game and drove in 5 runs leading the team to victory? I don't think anyone would suggest that player, who had an effect on only one game, be made MVP. However, we make that argument for a pitcher in some cases.

If the one game performance was in the deciding game of the series, I can understand it. It should be to a player that had the greatest overall affect on his team's performance.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by BusterKing

Regardless, how can you be a most valuable player when your team actually lost ? Doesn't make sense. There is no value in losing and sport is about winning or losing.

There is always valuing in performing well, and baseball play is all about athletic performance.

[The Wolf]

A player from the losing team has won the WS MVP before, so you can't call it unrealistic. Unlikely, freakish, odd...but if it has happened before in real life, it's by definition realistic.