Ryan Braun, a.k.a. the Hebrew Hammer, helped the Milwaukee Brewers to their best season in almost 30 years, and he is a deserving National League winner.
I usually don't like to see a pitcher win it, as he's in only 1 out of 5 games -- or, if a reliever, 1 or 2 innings out of 9.
Justin Verlander definitely deserved the Cy Young Award for what he did for the Detroit Tigers, but not the MVP. As a Yankee Fan, I wanted Curtis Granderson to win it.
However, on the ESPN site, I saw the following comment, which does make considerable sense:
For all of the "he only played in 35 games" people....Verlander faced on average 35 batters a game. Therefore, in his 35 games, he affected 1,225 plays. A batter who plays ALL 162 games and averages 4 at bats and 4 plays in the field a game affects 1,296 plays..... I say that means they're on equal footing when doing comparisons.
If we're going for the Pennant winners, the highest finisher among Texas Rangers was Michael Young, who finished 8th. A .336 batting average and 106 RBIs are MVP numbers, but just 11 home runs? He did play very good defense, so he should have been higher in the voting -- certainly higher than the 2nd-place finisher, Jacoby Ellsbury of the choking Red Sox.
And the highest finisher among St. Louis Cardinals was, big surprise, Albert Pujols, who finished 5th. He had a .299 batting average and 99 RBIs -- the 1st time in his 11-year career he hasn't gotten to .300 and 100. But he did hit 37 home runs. Most importantly, he had a great year by my standards: He won the World Series.
Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers finished 2nd. Great year, but the Dodgers missed the Playoffs. But what did you expect? Donnie Regular Season Baseball is their manager.
No comments:
Post a Comment