108 Responses to “30/30/100/100 Club”

1. Richard Chester Says:
   June 7th, 2011 at 10:37 pm

   @100

   When Berra joined the Yankees his catching left something to be desired. Thanks to the coaching of Bill Dickey he became a much better catcher.

2. Bip Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 3:15 am

   Kemp will join that list at this pace. The hardest thing will be runs scored with the guys batting behind him this year.

3. Lawrence Azrin Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 11:23 am

   @91/ BSK Says: "LA- ...Suppose the Red Sox run away with the AL East and win it by 15 games. Adrian Gonzalez has a monster year and posts a WAR of 9.5, leading the league. Most folks, both here and elsewhere, would argue that he is the hands down MVP.

   But, if WAR does what I think it does (which is to tell us roughly how many wins above replacement a guy provides), than Adrian Gonzalez was really just the icing on the cake for the Red Sox. Take away his 9.5 WAR and they still win the division convincingly... ...Regardless, there does seem to be a certain amount of diminishing returns when you have great players on elite teams. If no one player was essential to their success, how can any be the MVP?
   Thoughts???"

   BSK - Johnny T., in #96, said most of what I was going to state,but I would add that I see the pennant race as kind of a "tie-breaker", if two players are somewhat equal. The example in #98 of the 1951 AL MVP vote is instructive - while Ned Garver probably had a more valuable year than Berra (6.5 to 5.1 WAR), Berra had vastly more impact on the pennent race, and was a reasonable choice.

   Also, in 1991, Bonds had a couple more WAR than Pendleton (8.3 to 6.1) but Pendleton had a great impact on the race, plus he got a lot of the credit (right or wrong) for the Braves' dramatic last-to-first turnaround. If forced to to, I'd choose Bonds, but Pendleton was a quite justified choice.

   WAR and other advanced stats are a good starting point, but shouldn't be the be-all and end-all in every discussion here.

4. BSK Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 1:23 pm

   But LA, would you go the other way?

   Would you choose a guy with a 6.5 on a team that won it's division by 2 games with a 94-68 record or a guy with an 8.5 on a team that won it's division by a dozen games and went 104-58? I realize you'd probably look at more than just those few numbers, but assuming that is all you had to go on...

5. topper009 Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 2:14 pm

   I will say it again, the best player has the most value, to any team.

6. Lawrence Azrin Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 2:49 pm

   @104/ BSK Says: "But LA, would you go the other way?..."

   BSK, without any more specifics, I would choose the 8.5 WAR player, but depending on how the pennant race played out and how the 6.5 WAR player contributed, I would consider the 6.5 WAR player very seriously.

   Did you have a specific MVP vote in mind?

7. Johnny Twisto Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 3:25 pm

   the best player has the most value, to any team.

   How do you define the best player?

8. BSK Says:
   June 8th, 2011 at 9:47 pm

   LA-

   No, not specifically. Just trying to set up a scenario where either player had equal yet vastly different defenses.