Should Pitchers Ever Win The MVP Award?

[DonRocks]

I have rarely seen such a divisive question as this one - maybe whether or not Pete Rose should be in the Hall Of Fame. As Clayton Kershaw is probably going to win the 2014 NL MVP award, people are crying foul (no pun intended) because he has only played in 27 games. When you think about that by itself, you can see why this might chafe some people: That is exactly 1/6th of a full season.

But I think a pitcher who is overwhelmingly dominant can singlehandedly make a direct difference of about 15 wins per year, as well as having a strong indirect impact during games that he doesn't play - this indirect impact is what people don't think about.

"Kershaw Hard To Beat, Even In MVP Vote" by Tyler Kepner on nytimes.com features some deep insight by his manager, Don Mattingly, in support of Kershaw. Note that in Kepner's article, he mentions that Mattingly batted .352 with 31 homers and 113 RBIs in 1986, but lost the MVP award to Roger Clemens.

Personally, I vote "yes," but it has to be an exceptional year - a year that's so dominant that every time the pitcher starts, it's nearly an automatic win. That is Kershaw's 2014 season - the Dodgers are 23-4 (.851) in his 27 starts, and 69-64 (.518) in other games.

To put this season into a different perspective: If you had 6 Clayton Kershaws, the Dodgers would be 138-24 in 2014 - that's a statistic you'd only see in a video game. To put it in a similar perspective: If you had 0 Clayton Kershaws, the Dodgers barely limp into the playoffs as the final wildcard.

"Clayton Kershaw Deserves To Be MVP" by Neil Greenberg on washingtonpost.com

If you scroll down in that article, you can see the list of pitchers who have won the MVP award - it just doesn't seem right that Rollie Fingers won in 1981. Yes, Fingers had a phenomenal ERA and plenty of saves, but that's just not enough (although 1981 was a strike-shortened season).

Here's a question I've never seen addressed before: If a pitcher doesn't ever deserve to win the MVP award, why should a pitcher ever deserve to be in the HOF?

As an aside, some people say that Kershaw's June 18th no-hitter, with 15 strikeouts and 0 walks (1 error away from a perfect game) was the greatest game ever pitched - statistically, at least, there's a legitimate argument for that being the case: out of 28 batters faced, only 1 went to a 3-ball count, only 11 went to a 2-ball count, and the final 6 batters saw *zero* balls. It's as if he were throwing a ping-pong ball through a hula-hoop from six inches away.

[Steve R.]

It stands for "Most Valuable Player", doesn't it?  Well, if you can make the argument that the innings pitched made him more valuable than any other player (which your "impact" argument hits on the head), then I guess its okay.  I just don't see how any pitcher (& I'd say that Mariano Rivera would also be a good argument"¦ more impact in positive game outcomes than most) could be more valuable than a gold glover who hit over 300, had over 100 RBIs and came thru in clutch situations throughout the year.  Not only does a pitcher only get into 27 games, he's only in a part of 27 games.  I'd have to hear a real good explanation for such a vote.

[DonRocks]

It stands for "Most Valuable Player", doesn't it?  Well, if you can make the argument that the innings pitched made him more valuable than any other player (which your "impact" argument hits on the head), then I guess its okay.  I just don't see how any pitcher (& I'd say that Mariano Rivera would also be a good argument"¦ more impact in positive game outcomes than most) could be more valuable than a gold glover who hit over 300, had over 100 RBIs and came thru in clutch situations throughout the year.  Not only does a pitcher only get into 27 games, he's only in a part of 27 games.  I'd have to hear a real good explanation for such a vote.

Interesting - I thought you were going to agree with me, but then you kind of reversed course.

Many people argue that since the introduction of the Cy Young Award in 1956 (Cy Young - with his insane 511 victories, fully 94 more than second-place Walter Johnson - died in 1955), pitchers should be ineligible for MVP since they have an award of their own. I think until it's prohibited (and I wouldn't necessarily be against prohibiting it), it should be allowed. And I *think* you're also saying it should be allowed, but that it's rarely or never justified - am I reading you correctly?

Look at the Dodgers' record with and without Kershaw playing - doesn't that speak volumes about whether or not he deserves to win?

[Steve R.]

"And I *think* you're also saying it should be allowed, but that it's rarely or never justified - am I reading you correctly?"

Yep.  There is no basis to exclude pitchers from the award, but it'd be hard for me to agree with the choice of a pitcher for the award.

As for your example, Kershaw might be the most valuable player on the Dodgers, but the most valuable players on several other teams have an edge in my mind.

[DaveO]

That 23-4 record when he pitches is very convincing to me as opposed to the 69-64 record when Kershaw doesn't pitch.  With him they are in the playoffs.  Without him they are out of the playoffs.

I haven't followed the entire league as to other competitors.  For the Nats does any one player REALLY stand out?  They have the best record in the league.  An overall excellent staff but no pitcher that dominated over all the others, and a bunch of solid players, some with good years but not breathtaking.  Rendon was probably their best overall player in terms of overall production plus he stepped in for Zimmerman at third base and did an excellent job.  That was very VALUABLE.  Most valuable in the league???   Debatable.

[DaveO]

Well the National League chose a pitcher as MVP this year   The guy did have a helluva regular season.  And its rare that a pitcher ever wins this award.

....and if another pitcher has one of those seasons again next year...we can debate it all over again!!!!!!  

[deangold]

I think it was on Bleacher Report where a researcher compared Kershaw's record and to that of other pitchers over the same interval as he pitched this year.  It was the third best year ever recorded by a pitcher according to his ranking {things like wins above replacement, runs allowed, strikeouts etc}.  The ranking took into account the batting average, the runs etc scored in general that year to adjust fordiffernett eras.

Pedro Martinez has #1 and #2 with Boston, Gibson #4 with St L, and Koufax #5.

Of course, he still has a long way to go, like have a good playoffs to be considered the best pitcher ever, but as a regular season player he is up with Marichal, Gibson and Koufax who I used to see at Dodger Stadium growing up.  I say an 1-0 game with Koufax and Marichal that was over in about an hour.  Three hits total if i recall correctly.  Gibson was scary good.  I have never seen Kershaw pitch in person, but when hes on, he is amazing.

I would put him above two of the Dodger MVP winner I got to see... Gibson, Garvey (who didn't deserve it in the least imho).  But Wills? He changed baseball.  One of the greatest players every and sadly overlooked.  Vin Scully used to call Wills coming to bat a Dodger Rally.

[jasonc]

To put this season into a different perspective: If you had 6 Clayton Kershaws, the Dodgers would be 138-24 in 2014 - that's a statistic you'd only see in a video game. To put it in a similar perspective: If you had 0 Clayton Kershaws, the Dodgers barely limp into the playoffs as the final wildcard.

Pitcher W-L is a messy indicator of performance as there are a multitude of factors, independent of how well the pitcher pitched, that affect it (e.g., defense, run support, strength of opponent). Would Kershaw be less valuable if he only gave up one run per game, but his team never scored when he pitched? And beyond that, the perspective you espouse above is even more confounding.

I think Dave Cameron has it right:

Yes, he only made 27 starts. Yes, position players have the ability to make a larger impact on their team, since they impact both the offensive and defensive side of the ball every single day. But just because position players have a higher ceiling for their performance does not mean that a position player is always the most valuable player in every season. Value is a combination of quantity and quality of performance; focusing solely on the number of games played simply ignores half of the picture. 

No one would reasonably argue that every position player is more valuable than every pitcher, simply due to the difference in games played. There is a line at which the performance of a hitter and a pitcher intersect, erasing the difference in games played. This is why starting pitchers are paid as much or more per year as elite position players. This is why teams trade bats for arms. And in this season, I think Kershaw's excellence, even in an abbreviated season for a starting pitcher, created more value for his team than any other player in the league.

[DonRocks]

I think Dave Cameron has it right:

I think he does too, and I think we're saying the same thing in two different ways.

(W-L is not a messy indicator over the long-term. This is the #1 reason why Mike Mussina will be in the Hall Of Fame: Nobody with 100 wins more than losses has ever *not* been (the #2 reason is that he won 7 Gold Gloves, but now I'm getting off-topic.))

A pitcher may play in 27 games, but has so much direct influence upon each of those games (he's by definition directly involved in over half the outs for each inning that he pitches) that you might say "even though he plays in 1/6th of the games, he's 6-times more influential per game."

This is similar to why Mark Moseley won the NFL MVP Award in 1982 despite being a placekicker: He made over 95% of his kicks that season, so every time he touched the ball (other than kickoffs) he was responsible for almost 3 points (going off-topic again, Mark Moseley is now the Director of Franchising for *Five Guys*!)

[Steve R.]

I gotta admit, that's an interesting take on it.  But, I'd still have trouble voting for a pitcher (again, I'm somewhat open, but"¦).  Put it this way -- even if Nadal won every set 6-0, if he only played 1/6th of the tournaments, I'd have trouble with him being ranked #1.  He might be your favorite player, but that doesn't mean he'd be consistently better than others if he had to do it more often.   Especially if there was no control for who he met in each.  A pitcher might have ten times as much influence over anyone else in every game he plays during the season but, playing only 27 games also limits who his skill is tested against.  A batter who plays over 160 games probably bats against every great pitcher in the league and fields against every great hitter.  Just some more random thoughts. 

[DonRocks]

I gotta admit, that's an interesting take on it.  But, I'd still have trouble voting for a pitcher (again, I'm somewhat open, but"¦).  Put it this way -- even if Nadal won every set 6-0, if he only played 1/6th of the tournaments, I'd have trouble with him being ranked #1.  He might be your favorite player, but that doesn't mean he'd be consistently better than others if he had to do it more often.   Especially if there was no control for who he met in each.  A pitcher might have ten times as much influence over anyone else in every game he plays during the season but, playing only 27 games also limits who his skill is tested against.  A batter who plays over 160 games probably bats against every great pitcher in the league and fields against every great hitter.  Just some more random thoughts. 

Assuming a 4-man rotation, and an average of 4 games per series (strictly for ease of explanation), it all works out exactly the same. Each starting pitcher would pitch once against each team in the series, and have the exact same ratio of "good opponents-to-bad opponents" as a position player. I know it doesn't work out to exactly 4 and 4, but it's close enough where we're approaching a random distribution.

If any tennis player were to hypothetically play only the 4 Grand Slams (and no other tournament that year), and win every set played 6-0, it would be impossible not to rank him or her #1, at least to me.

[Steve R.]

Assuming a 4-man rotation, and an average of 4 games per series (strictly for ease of explanation), it all works out exactly the same. Each starting pitcher would pitch once against each team in the series, and have the exact same ratio of "good opponents-to-bad opponents" as a position player. I know it doesn't work out to exactly 4 and 4, but it's close enough where we're approaching a random distribution.

If any tennis player were to hypothetically play only the 4 Grand Slams (and no other tournament that year), and win every set played 6-0, it would be impossible not to rank him or her #1, at least to me.

Good points.  To put it to the test, I went back and looked at Bumgarner's year (since he's probably the leading pitcher story of the year) & you're correct.  Assuming that he's not an exception, during the regular season he pitched 33 games with 28 decisions (18-10).  This included pitching at least once against every other NL team & 15 times in his division (only once against SD, while either 4 or 5 times each against Ariz., LAD & Col"¦ not anything to be concerned about since, overall, these things are never perfect).  That's as good an overall exposure as anyone &, as you say, puts him as much into play as an MVP as anyone else.

(Gee, I hope this post was more coherent)

[Kibbee Nayee]

At the very least, the criteria needs to be cleaned up.

Case in point -- in 1978, Ron Guidry went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA and 16 complete games, against the 9-man lineups of the American League. He won 14 games after a Yankee loss that year, preventing losing streaks and probably contributing more than any other person to the Yankees comeback from 14 and a half games after the All Star Break to catch the Red Sox and win the pennant. He finished second in the MVP to Jim Rice of Boston, who had a good year, but the argument was that pitchers only participate in 35 games, so the position player whould get the MVP award....notwithstanding the fact that Ron Guidry was the most valuable player on the planet that year. Guidry's WAR was 9.8 in '78, and Rice's WAR was 7.5. And the clincher? Guidry led his team on a tear in the second half to win the pennant from the Red Sox after being 14.5 games back....Rice presided over the biggest pennant race choke in history. Who was more valuable from that standpoint alone?

Fast forward a few years to 1986. Don Mattingly had 238 hits, 53 doubles and 31 homers, with a .352 batting average. Nobody had a better year than he did, even better than Jim Rice in 1978. So, using the criteria that was used in 1978, Don Mattingly should have won the MVP in 1986, right? Instead, he finished second to Roger Clemens, who went 24-4 with a 2.48 ERA, appearing in 33 games. Clemens didn't have quite as good a year as Guidry in '78, but was awarded with the MVP. Mattingly had a far greater year in '86 than Rice in '78, yet finished second in the MVP.

Really, the only criteria that was used in these two seasons was that more sportswriters wanted the Red Sox to win the awards than the Yankees. That's why I say we should just clean up the criteria. Maybe call the MVP the Babe Ruth Award and only give it to position players, and keep the Cy Young Award for pitchers.

(And if you really want to have fun with this silliness, just consider the greatest ever closer in the history of baseball and easily the most valuable Yankee during a run that included five World Series titles -- Mariano Rivera never finished higher than 3rd in the Cy Young voting and never finished higher than 9th in the MVP voting. Just compare any one of his seasons to the 1983 silliness of Guillermo Hernandez's MVP award.)