It was announced today that Justin Verlander won the American League MVP in a close vote that saw Boston heartthrob and former “malcontent” Jacoby Ellsbury come in second and saw the best player currently playing in Canada, Toronto’s Jose Bautista, come in third.
But even more interesting than that was this gem of a quote from Cleveland Indians beat writer Jim Ingraham, who gave his reasoning for OMITTING VERLANDER ALTOGETHER from his ballot. From the ESPN link posted above:
“I’d wrestled with this for a long time. If I was ever going to vote for pitcher for MVP, it would be him this year,” Ingraham said. “He hasn’t appeared in 79 percent of their games, any starting pitcher really doesn’t appear in 79 percent of his team’s games in a year.
“Would you vote for an NFL quarterback for MVP if he only appeared in three of his team’s 16 games, which would be 21 percent? So that’s part of it. Another part of it is I think they’re apples and oranges. The guys that are in there every day, there’s a grind to a season that a starting pitcher doesn’t, I don’t think, experience the way the everyday position players do playing 150, 160 games.”
So Ingraham uses the logic that an MVP should play in a majority of the team’s games, omits all pitchers from the ballot, but says that he WOULD vote for Verlander if he ever voted a pitcher MVP? But still compares a starting pitcher to an NFL quarterback, who in turn IS the most valuable player on any team? I’m going to let that set in with you for a second.
Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Let’s forget about the fact that due to the nature of starting pitching, the most Verlander would start in a single season is probably 35 games. Everyday players obviously play in more games, but what Mr. Ingraham forgets is that everyday players don’t nearly affect as many at bats as an ace-level starting pitcher does throughout the course of a season.
For example: Ellsbury this season had 732 plate appearances in 158 games, the most in all of baseball at an average of 4.63 per game. Bautista had 655 in 149 games, an average of 4.4 per game. Meanwhile, Verlander pitched to 969 different batters this season in his 34 starts, an average of 28.5 batters per game. He also had 4 plate appearances batting in case anybody was wondering about his interleague stats.
So over the course of a season, Verlander affects 25 percent more plate appearances than either Ellsbury or Verlander, yet because the idea of full games are being presented here as opposed to what the pitcher can control, he should be left out of the process all together? It’s pretty evident that Verlander has as much right to an MVP vote as any other player in baseball. Sure, he only appeared in 21 percent of Detroit’s games, but it’s evident that the 1,000 or so plate appearances he presided over turned out to be a major reason as to why Detroit was successful this year, and even with Miguel Cabrera having another monster season, one can make the case that Verlander was more valuable to his team.
Regardless of who you think won the MVP this season (and this was a close vote that will be argued for a while) it’s important to realize that just because the Cy Young is there doesn’t mean pitchers shouldn’t be left out in the cold in MVP voting. There’s still a lot of value in what a pitcher does for his team, and just like a reliever shouldn’t be left out of contention for the Cy Young, a starter shouldn’t be left out of the MVP race. By many advanced metrics, Verlander was either the best or second-best pitcher in the AL in a lot of categories, and him being the most explosive pitcher in the game today doesn’t hurt the “wow” factor that can influence the voting process. In fact, tomorrow, when the NL MVP is announced, there’s a good chance that you’ll see both Clayton Kershaw and Roy Halladay seriously considered for the award, as they rightfully should be.
