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| The other, even bigger, advantage, the Yankees are thought to have is that, well, they are the Yankees, a major, worldwide brand, which brings extra exposure and more earning potential (though Otani hasn’t shown any real interest in money to this point; if he did he’d just wait the two years). Japanese players are seen as preferring either the Yankees or Dodgers due to the prestige of the league’s respective marquee franchises, and it is no surprise that those two teams have had the most success with Japanese players (the Yankees have had Hideki Matsui and Masahiro Tanaka, and the Dodgers Hideo Nomo and Kenta Maeda), which provides some positive history. And in this case, where the player very likely will be signing for something well below his market value, there is an expectation that marketing opportunities will come into play. “The Yankees are the favorite, there’s no other way to look at it,” one National League executive said. |
I know this doesn't really mean much. So take it with a grain of salt, but I figured I'd pass it along to my fellow Giants fans.
Awards are goofy anyways.
It's two separate sets of voters.
The 27-2 first place votes doesn't mean that writers thought Altuve was THAT much better than Judge this season-- only that the overwhelming majority of voters thought Altuve was at least a hair better than Judge and cast their vote for him. It's an NBA best-of-seven series where one team wins 100-99 in all 4 games and ends up winning the series 4-0, or a tennis match where one player wins all three sets in a tiebreak and ends up winning 3-0. It doesn't mean the match-up was a blowout or that there was a wide disparity between the competitors, just that one side was a hair better in each result.
The 27-2 first place votes doesn't mean that writers thought Altuve was THAT much better than Judge this season-- only that the overwhelming majority of voters thought Altuve was at least a hair better than Judge and cast their vote for him. It's an NBA best-of-seven series where one team wins 100-99 in all 4 games and ends up winning the series 4-0, or a tennis match where one player wins all three sets in a tiebreak and ends up winning 3-0. It doesn't mean the match-up was a blowout or that there was a wide disparity between the competitors, just that one side was a hair better in each result.
That's how I see it too - well done with the explanation of the viewpoint.
I know this doesn't really mean much. So take it with a grain of salt, but I figured I'd pass it along to my fellow Giants fans.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing!
The 27-2 first place votes doesn't mean that writers thought Altuve was THAT much better than Judge this season-- only that the overwhelming majority of voters thought Altuve was at least a hair better than Judge and cast their vote for him. It's an NBA best-of-seven series where one team wins 100-99 in all 4 games and ends up winning the series 4-0, or a tennis match where one player wins all three sets in a tiebreak and ends up winning 3-0. It doesn't mean the match-up was a blowout or that there was a wide disparity between the competitors, just that one side was a hair better in each result.
Judge had a season that was only matched by a handful of players safely within the 20 greatest to ever play the sport and led a team not remotely expected to make the postseason to the playoffs, but he got 2 measly first place votes because of "consistency". Had Judge been more "consistent", he would've put up Barry Bonds' 2001 steroids numbers. There are 3 websites measuring WAR (fangraphs, b-r.com, & espn) and 2 of them have Judge as the best player in the AL by a significant margin. But "consistency". It seems to me that people were searching for reasons not to give Judge the award as opposed to recognizing what he accomplished. That's how we end up hearing more about 6 weeks instead of those other 4 months.
This falls into one of those categories, I'd bet, where the writers justify it by saying he won the roomie of the year, so he'll have more shots at an MVP. I call bullshit. He had the best season and was more valuable to his team.
ESPN's WAR is just Baseball-Reference's. 2 of the 3 major WAR calcualators ranked Judge above Altuve.
For a sport that struggled with individual star power vis a vis the other major sports, no one broke through that more this season than Judge.
I see no evidence that there was any vendetta against Judge.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with thinking that Altuve was a more valuable player. Many people value consistency over the course of a long season as opposed to streaks of fire and ice. Plus, Altuve had better numbers in high-leverage situations which writers may value more than production in low-leverage situations.
If the roles were reversed, and we were die-hard Astros fans, do you really think that you would be calling the vote a mockery thinking that Altuve didn't deserve it?
I won't go so far as to say Judge was robbed because it was a close competition, and Altuve is a great player who had a tremendous year as well. Judge was still more productive.
I also think it's unfortunately because this might well turn out to have been Judge's best shot at MVP, unless Mike Trout starts getting injured every year.
I didn't mean there was a conspiracy. I meant they've chosen a reason to ignore the fact that by most measures Aaron Judge was the AL's best player this season. That doesn't necessarily mean he was the most valuable or should've won the award, but it bears more or at least as much mention as "consistency". If they want to hand out something else called "The Most Consistent Player Award", so be it.
When Aaron Judge gets 2 first place votes after the season he just had, that means a near unanimous amount of the voters chose to ignore who the best player in the league was. When that's happened in the past, it was almost always tied up with team wins (or at least that was the excuse). That's not the case here. I might be wrong and my memory might be fuzzy, but I've never heard "consistency" as a reason to give someone the MVP Award over another player who had the superior season.
Since it's a cumulative metric, it blows my mind that Trout led all of baseball in so few games. But he was the best offensive player and played for a team that couldn't do anything without him, so every contribution he made had a gigantic impact on his team's ability to win a game.
Since it's a cumulative metric, it blows my mind that Trout led all of baseball in so few games. But he was the best offensive player and played for a team that couldn't do anything without him, so every contribution he made had a gigantic impact on his team's ability to win a game.
Paul, I can appreciate your on this. You always use facts to back up opinions. I don't always agree with you, but I can always appreciate where you are coming from. That being said, can you explain this post to me. So Trout had a huge impact in wins, yet the Angels were .500 with Trout and .500 without him. Wouldn't that tell you that he really didn't have a massive impact? Are we trying to measure how much impact he has in losses? It's just not adding up to me.
1. His performance over the past four years without an MVP prior to this.
2. Judge getting ROY, and writers feeling that they also wanted to acknowledge Altuve since Judge had already been recognized.
Add these to Altuve's consistency, fielding and seeming leadership and writers voted the way they did.
Judge had a season for the ages, and deserved to win MVP as much as Altuve did (more based upon stats). But voters are swayed by a lot of factors when casting a ballot.
1. His performance over the past four years without an MVP prior to this.
2. Judge getting ROY, and writers feeling that they also wanted to acknowledge Altuve since Judge had already been recognized.
Add these to Altuve's consistency, fielding and seeming leadership and writers voted the way they did.
Judge had a season for the ages, and deserved to win MVP as much as Altuve did (more based upon stats). But voters are swayed by a lot of factors when casting a ballot.
For me, it's beyond just the numbers (even thought Judge has the edge in most categories). It's about the team. Houston had a better and more consistent lineup. Judge was the driver for the Yankees lineup. The lineup and team really fed off of him. To me, he was the more valuable player.
For a sport that struggled with individual star power vis a vis the other major sports, no one broke through that more this season than Judge.
I see no evidence that there was any vendetta against Judge.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with thinking that Altuve was a more valuable player. Many people value consistency over the course of a long season as opposed to streaks of fire and ice. Plus, Altuve had better numbers in high-leverage situations which writers may value more than production in low-leverage situations.
If the roles were reversed, and we were die-hard Astros fans, do you really think that you would be calling the vote a mockery thinking that Altuve didn't deserve it?
Your last sentence makes no sense and couldn’t be further from what people are saying. Nobody is calling the voting a mockery and absolutely nobody has said that Altuve doesn’t deserve it. It’s actually quite the opposite. Almost every single person on this thread followed up their disappointment at the results by saying that Altuve was deserving. The disappointment comes from only 2 out of 30 voters felt that Judge had the better year. To me it was basically a coin flip so I was expecting a much closer result. Doesn’t mean I think Altuve wasn’t deserving. As I already stated earlier in this thread.
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that people were looking for reasons to not give Judge the award? He might have been the best individual story all season and he was certainly the most buzzworthy player in the sport.
For a sport that struggled with individual star power vis a vis the other major sports, no one broke through that more this season than Judge.
I see no evidence that there was any vendetta against Judge.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with thinking that Altuve was a more valuable player. Many people value consistency over the course of a long season as opposed to streaks of fire and ice. Plus, Altuve had better numbers in high-leverage situations which writers may value more than production in low-leverage situations.
If the roles were reversed, and we were die-hard Astros fans, do you really think that you would be calling the vote a mockery thinking that Altuve didn't deserve it?
Your last sentence makes no sense and couldn’t be further from what people are saying. Nobody is calling the voting a mockery and absolutely nobody has said that Altuve doesn’t deserve it. It’s actually quite the opposite. Almost every single person on this thread followed up their disappointment at the results by saying that Altuve was deserving. The disappointment comes from only 2 out of 30 voters felt that Judge had the better year. To me it was basically a coin flip so I was expecting a much closer result. Doesn’t mean I think Altuve wasn’t deserving. As I already stated earlier in this thread.