why is it fine for a bunch of writers to have Carpenter 3rd, but one guy thinks he should be 4th and that’s some kind of national tragedy?

as for Zobrist, clearly he should have been higher, but let’s take babysteps with these writers. at least they’re getting the winners right this year.

VORP numbers fwiw
1. Joe Mauer 91.0
2. Derek Jeter 72.8
3. Ben Zobrist 61.0
4. Jason Bartlett 58.3
5. Adam Lind TOR 58.3

There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.

    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.
    5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

    You are also urged to give serious consideration to all your selections, from 1 to 10. A 10th-place vote can influence the outcome of an election. You must fill in all 10 places on your ballot. Keep in mind that all players are eligible for MVP, and that includes pitchers and designated hitters.

    Only regular-season performances are to be taken into consideration.

So the definition of value can really be determined by each voter. I’m pretty sure that there are a lot of valid definitions of value that a voter can use – statistical value, monetary value, prestige value, a mixture of all of these… Some examples:

• If a voter believes that a team in contention for the playoffs in September / October is able to bring in more revenue throughout the entire season (because they are not out of the play-off race in July), then that voter might reasonably vote for the best player on the contending team on his/her MVP ballot. Why? The player provided a lot of value to the team.
• Conversely, I suppose, another voter might feel that if you have A-Rod on the Texas Rangers or Andre Dawson on the Cubs and the team would draw 3,568 people to the ballpark all season without that player’s star power bringing attendance up to 2 million for the season….then that player is most valuable.
• Other voters might feel that since winning is the ultimate goal of the sport, the player that statistically contributed the most to winning should be MVP (using a multitude of stats, including WAR and WPA).
• Conversely, other voters might feel that since winning is the ultimate goal of the sport, that the MVP should be the best player on the team with the best record in the league.

None of these interpretations of “Valuable” are really wrong…and the BBWAA instructions specifically allow for all of these interpretations. So, my points really were: 1) The AL MVP voting results were nothing to feel outrage over. 2) The statement that “The top three in AL MVP should have been Mauer, Zack Greinke the Zobrist.” is a bit silly, because it only looks at WAR and not at the complete value picture.

Suppose I hit a home run every at bat of the season. 700 solo home runs (because no one else on my team can get on base)!!! And no one else on my team is any good, so we lose every game of the season 10-4. My team’s record is 0-162 at the end of the season. Should I be the MVP?

I, at least, think that its an interesting question to ask. The team would still have gone 0-162 without me….and the goal of the sport is to win games….so how much value did I really add to the team?

Then again…I did have the highest WAR in the league….so most people would agree that I was statistically the most valuable to my team.