National League MVP results
Posted by Andy on November 21, 2007
Here's the comparison of the real NL MVP voting vs the voting by the SOTD readers.
First, the top 10 vote-getters from the real vote:
Player, Club 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Points Jimmy Rollins, PHI 16 7 4 4 1 353 Matt Holliday, COL 11 18 1 1 1 336 Prince Fielder, MIL 5 6 17 3 1 284 David Wright, NYM 1 4 12 7 1 1 2 182 Ryan Howard, PHI 2 6 3 3 3 2 3 112 Chipper Jones, ATL 1 3 3 7 5 1 1 107 Jake Peavy, SD 2 5 5 4 1 4 1 97 Chase Utley, PHI 1 5 2 6 4 1 3 89 Albert Pujols, STL 1 2 2 3 6 5 50 Hanley Ramirez, FLA 3 2 4 4 1 49
And here are the top 10 vote-getters from the SOTD readers:
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th Total
1. Matt Holliday 7 7 6 2 1 1 232 2. Jimmy Rollins 9 5 1 1 2 2 1 1 211 3. David Wright 5 5 3 5 2 3 1 204 4. Prince Fielder 1 4 3 2 5 2 2 3 1 146 5. Chase Utley 1 2 2 4 3 1 1 1 2 108 6. Chipper Jones 1 3 3 2 2 5 4 1 101 7. Hanley Ramirez 1 3 5 3 5 1 96 8. Jake Peavy 1 4 2 2 2 1 1 74 9. Albert Pujols 1 2 2 1 3 1 3 3 73 10. Ryan Howard 1 1 1 1 3 4 1 4 56
Now, we had only 25 ballots, as compared to 32 ballots overall. If you scale the SOTD votes, Rollins has 11.5 first-place votes and 270 overall points. Holliday has 9 first-place votes and 297 overall points. The first-place votes are pretty close to the real voting, but you folks gave more secondary votes to Holliday, putting him over the top.
But note that SOTD readers came up with the same top 10 candidates as the real voters, although the order was a bit different. Ryan Howard did a lot better in the real voting, while David Wright did a lot better in the SOTD voting.
In general, I noticed the same trend here are with the AL Cy Young voting. The real voters seemed to consider mainly just Holliday and Rollins for the win, whereas the SOTD readers considered many more players. I think Wright got hurt a lot in the real voting due to the Mets collapse, and perhaps if I had started the NL MVP voting right at the end of the season (instead of with a week or two left), Wright would probably have gotten fewer votes.
Anyway, great job by all.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:56 am
Yeah great job, except for, I think, the BBWAA.
Rollins was the 2nd best player on his team. If he'd somehow made the most outs in the league while hitting 65 HR with a 185 OPS+, maybe you could still say he's the most valuable player, but that wasn't the case. Just an awful MVP pick.
There are other huge problems, but I think Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard being 3rd and 5th are the most glaring, especially with Pujols ending up in 9th. I won't even get into the whole Mets collapse and its staggering affect on David Wright's stature in the minds of the baseball writers.
I had issues with our voting results (and my own ballot, admittedly), but being that it wasn't "official" and I didn't have a lot of time to research it, I could live with it. It was fun. But these are baseball writers. It's their job to be informed about these things and they don't even know where to start.
November 21st, 2007 at 10:44 am
Rollins won the Gold Glove at shortstop, and was 2nd in the league in total bases. That's an awesome combo.
How many lead off hitters have placed 2nd in total bases? I am curious.
P.S. Interestingly, he did not make the All-Star team. How many MVPs did not make the All-Star team?
November 21st, 2007 at 11:01 am
I don't know about being an All-star and MVP in the same season, but I believe that Kirk Gibson, 1988 NL MVP, is the only MVP since the existence of the All-Star game to NEVER have made an All-star team in his entire career. In the back of my mind, I think there might be one other example of this as well, but I can't come up with it.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Thanks for conducting our vote and writing up the comparison!
I second vonhayes's comments. Jimmy Rollins certainly is a worthy candidate, but despite all his virtues, I have a hard time awarding him #1 when he was 47th in on-base percentage. Yes, he picked up bases with steals and extra-base power, but he also led the league in batter outs.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:51 pm
By the way, that 380 TBs by Rollins is the 6th most for a Phillie in a season. Only Chuck Klein, Lefty O'Doul and Ryan Howard had more in a season. 380 is more than Mike Schmidt or Dick Allen ever had in a season.
Rollins did this playing 85% of his games in the lead off position. He scored 139 runs. I suppose that isn't enough for some of you 🙂
November 21st, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Yeah...to tell you the truth, I think Rollins should have finished 1st in the SOTD poll. A few readers completely left him off their ballots, and he got a 9th-place and 10th-place vote. I can't understand him getting any votes lower than 5th (which indeed holds true with the real voting.) If all his votes below 5th (and non-votes) were pushed up to 5th place, he would have won.
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 am
its odd to me that people are using the stat of 'most outs made' without actually thinking about what they are talking about. he was just outside of the top 5 in times on base (the leader board only shows the top 5 and if i counted correctly he is only 4 off the 5th place person)..
right or wrong (rightly so in my opinion) every player from Colorado will always face this type of problem... because look at Hollidays home/road splits. if you double his road numbers and pretend thats a full season hes a .300/20/100 guy. big whoop!
its amazing to me that after what, 15 years in the league? that some people dont yet realize what playing 81 games in colorado does for a player....