KRod MVP? Uhh... No

The media loves to talk about awards prematurely, and with the Cy Young and rookie of the year awards all but locked up in both leagues. MVP debate has started.

If you haven't figured it out, the Cy Youngs should be won by Brandon Webb and Cliff Lee respectively, and it likely won't be close although Lincecum and Halladay could make things interesting in either falters down the stretch.

Similarly the ROYs should be Geovany Soto and Evan Longoria and both should be unanimous.

This leaves managers of the year and MVP. The skippers should be Maddon in the AL, and Gonzalez in the NL although I'm sure Scioscia and Pinella will get votes, and Bruce Bouchy should as well.

Finally it brings me to MVP the award that is the single stupidest, most subjective, most arbitrarily awarded accolade in all of sports. Jeff Miller thinks and apparently Peter Gammons think that Francisco Rodriguez is the man for this award. Jeff Miller is also an idiot, and apparently so is Gammons although a lot of people have thought so for a very long time.

Against all odds the Angels, and their anemic offense have dominated baseball this year and are tied for baseball's best record despite having a run differential worse than the Toronto Blue Jays. Many will say Rodriguez has a lot to due with this. I'll point to the three best pitchers on the team: Ervin Santana, John Lackey, and Joe Saunders, to go along with a well rounded bullpen, a weak division, and old fashioned good luck. The notion that a closer who averages less than 3 innings per week can be the most valuable player is downright the kind of person who would run with the bulls brainless and even that is not strong enough to describe it. The argument for the case is based on two things that just piss me off: the notion that the MVP must come from the a playoff team, and the save statistic. KRod as they call him should be the first man to reach 60 saves this year. Good for him. Doesn't change the fact that the save is the single stupidest statistic in all of baseball as Jim Capel agrees.

It's true that it's Most Valuable Player, not best player which is stupid to begin with, but lets break that name down shall we? Most Valuable Player. Thankfully the sports writers are smart enough to understand the Most, and they have yet to award it to a fan or a manager so I'm going to assume that they understand the player as well. What they seem to have a problem with the is the valuable.

Webster defines valuable as:

1 a: having monetary value b: worth a good price
2 a: having desirable or esteemed characteristics or qualities <valuable friendships> b: of great use or service <valuable advice>
MVP awards in any sport have never been award to the guy who was highest paid or was the best bargain, although that could be a fun award, so we'll stick to definition number to. Most valuable advice, to me would mean the advice that helped me the most therefore MVP should be the player who helps his team the most. Basically who adds the most wins to his team's win/loss record. Nowhere does it say that this player must be on a team in contention. The fact that sports writers seem to think that a player needs to be on a winning team to be valuable, or that he can't be the best player on a team full of very good players is downright idiotic and has led to some terrible, god awful MVPs over the years.

Here are my thoughts on how MVP should be decided:
1. The position in the standings of players team should have no bearing on the award.
2. The players park, position, and other surrounding should be factored in.

In short the MVP should be awarded to the best player in the league for that particular season. In the NL, this is easy as it is once again Albert Pujols despite fantastic years from Lance Berkman, Hanley Ramirez, Matt Holliday, and Chipper Jones. Pujols crushes all with an incredible .356/.462/.630 line, almost twice as many walks as strikeouts, and incredible 75.2 VORP with a month to go, and good defense at first. His WARP3 is a very solid 12.9, a career high, meaning that he has added an estimated 13 wins to St. Louis' total which helps explain their unexpected success.

Things are less clear in the AL where surprisingly the two best players are on a team that is below .500. Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore have been the two best players in the league all season. Lee leads the AL in most pitching categories and leads all pitchers in baseball as well as all players in the AL in VORP with 61.3, Sizemore is right behind at 58.3. Lee is an incredible 18-2 with 141 strikeouts and just 26 walks, he also has a WARP3 of 11.2 also best in the AL. Sizemore should be 30-30 with good defense in center, great baserunning, and being really the only threat for much of the season in a weak lineup. If he finishes with a flurry he could become the first center fielder to hit the 40-40 mark. Even without that, his WARP3 is 9.9 which leads AL hitters by half a win.

Cliff Lee is the AL MVP this season. Thanks to his stellar season, the Indians would be running away with the division if they hadn't lost Martinez, Hafner, Westbrook, and Carmona for most of the season, and might still be in the hunt if they had held on to Sabathia. None of these things are Lee's fault. Plain and simple: the Indians are 19-6 when Lee starts and 42-61 when anyone else starts. If that's not valuable I don't know what is.

If you have to pick a player on a contending team, that player has to be Carlos Quentin who is the best player on a team that could make the playoffs. But as I have said earlier, that's stupid.