這篇BP的Steven Goldman是回應John Heyman的文章...
用選手自己的表現來評定MVP, 而不是用他身處什麼球隊來評MVP
Jose Bautista不論用OPS和WAR來看都是個好球員，卻因為待錯了球隊，就錯失了
MVP的考量。
John Heyman認為MVP不是選最優秀的球員，而是選最有價值的球員，最有價值意味
著對進入季後賽有貢獻的球員。
Goldman覺得這種想法很愚蠢，打者每場每九棒才能打一次，守備時除了捕手以外
每場也才接了幾個球。投手則要休息，好幾場才能上場一次。一個球隊中的球員表現得
再好，如果隊中其他球員表現太差，縱使他表現得再好球隊也贏不了球。尤其球隊中表
現最好的球員和排名第二名的球員差距太大時，球員表現得再好，球隊根本贏不了球。
只有WAR的統計才比較能突顯球員自己的表現，不會因隊友的關係影響個人的成績。
Babe Ruth 1920年打出.847的史上最佳的長打率，所有成績是都是傲視全聯盟，但
球隊最後只拿到第三名。Steve Carlton 1972年投出27勝10敗，ERA是1.97，但費城人
仍然輸了97場。1991年金鶯隊輸了95場球，但小瑞普肯打滿162場，打出323/.374/.566
優秀的成績，創下他生涯最佳的成績WARP是10.5，但還是改變不了球隊贏少敗多的景像
。Barry Bonds在2000-2004年間打出生涯最好的五年成績，但五年內巨人隊只有三年進
到季後賽，Barry Bonds的優異的成績，的確造成球隊很大的改變，但他一個人沒辦法
在2001年增加巨人隊的投手強度，也沒辦法在2004年讓巨人隊有更好的打線。你可以用
這樣苛責Bonds嗎?
但投票者在投票時，的確覺得怪不了Bonds所以在2001-2004年每一年都讓他拿到
MVP。所以Heyman的想法有道理嗎?
當然Goldman不是說Jose Bautista一定該拿MVP，因為他下半季實在打得不夠好，直
到週日為止的成績是.254/.412/.483，只有6支全壘打。但選MVP時，用什麼幫助球隊進
季後賽的來選MVP想法，根本是很可笑！！
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=14890
August 30, 2011
The BP Broadside
Judge a Player by His Performance, Not the Company He Keeps
by Steven Goldman
The estimable Craig Calcaterra took John Heyman to task yesterday for
conditioning his Most Valuable Player vote on whether a player’s team was in
contention. Quoth Heyman:
I am not strictly opposed to a player on a non-contender winning the award,
which has happened on occasion (think Alex Rodriguez of the last-place
Rangers in 2003) although I admit that's a tougher one for me since the word
valuable suggests that the players' achievements did not go for naught and
actually helped a team play into October…
…[S]ince the award is for most valuable player, and not most outstanding,
the effect a player had on the pennant race should be vital. If someone else
wants to interpret most valuable as synonymous to best, they can. And if
someone else wants to interpret it as being valuable to a particular team,
they can, too. But there is plenty of precedent to suggest it means valuable
in the league.
The ultimate goal of any player is to win, so the value of the individual
accomplishments that lead to a pennant should be viewed in that context.
So while [Jose] Bautista has been the most outstanding player in the league
whether you use WAR or OPS or or any other key stat, it’s a tough case to
make for him as MVP in a year when so many stars are ushering their team into
the playoffs.
This is pure silliness, though it didn’t upset me nearly as much as it did
Craig—what got me was, “In addition to A-Rod, in 1987 the Cubs' Andre
Dawson won the award after hitting 49 home runs (equaling the second-highest
total in a quarter-century), a rare show of support for a player on an
also-ran team, and that may happen when such a player laps the field
statistically.” The idea that Dawson lapped anything more important than an
ice cream cone that season still chaps me nearly 25 years after the event;
Dawson and his minuscule on-base percentage wasn’t one of the 15 most
valuable National Leaguers that year, and I will never, ever get bored of
saying so. (My vote, had they been giving them out to high school students,
would have been for Ozzie Smith.)
But I digress. In our pennant race book, It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, Jay
Jaffe wrote a chapter called “The Summer of Loving Carl Yastrzemski,” where
he looked at the idea of a singular player carrying a team to the postseason.
Yastrzemski certainly did that in the short term in 1967, batting
.523/.604/.955 over the final two weeks of the season, but no one maintains
that kind of pace over the full season, so the winning effort is inevitably
the result of a team effort. As Jay wrote, “The best hitter can bat only
once every nine times, the most durable pitcher needs a few days of rest
between starts, and even the best fielder (beyond catchers) handles the ball
only a handful of times a game, making it extremely unlikely that a team
could rely on the same player over and over again for that extra boost.” Jay
found that the greater the gap between a team’s best player and its
second-best player, the less likely the team was to win, and that was true no
matter how good the best player was. The correlation between a team’s
best-ranked player in WARP and winning was actually much lower than that of
its second-best player and winning. As the song goes, it takes two—at least
two.
Thing is, you don’t need to do a major sabermetric study to know that
winning in baseball requires a team effort. When Babe Ruth set the record for
slugging percentage in 1920, personally out-homering every team in the
league, the Yankees finished a close third. When Steve Carlton went 27-10
with a 1.97 ERA in 1972, the Phillies still lost 97 games. The Orioles lost
95 games in 1991 despite Cal Ripken playing every game, hitting
.323/.374/.566, and having his best year with the glove (for 10.5 WARP as we
figure it). And however illicitly Barry Bonds might have achieved his great
seasons from 2000 to 2004, the Giants went to the postseason in only three of
those five years. Bonds’ bat could affect many things, but it couldn’t give
the team better pitching in 2001, or a deeper lineup in 2004. Of all the
things one could blame Bonds for, why blame him for that?
In truth, the voters didn’t blame him; they gave him the MVP every year from
2001 to 2004 (though the Giants went to the postseason in 2000, they chose
his teammate Jeff Kent, who was almost as good as he was—there again, it
takes two). Of course, even the Giants teams that didn’t win were good and
Bonds’ seasons statistically outstanding, so his awards would no doubt fall
under Heyman’s generalized “contenders“ rule or “Dawson laps things”
exception, but the bigger point is that even in their best years, not even
the game’s supermen, Ruth and Bonds, could always haul their teams to a
pennant.
“Valuable” is an interesting term in that most of the time its meaning is
relative, not absolute. A snorkel is valuable if you’re hanging around the
Marianas Trench with Jacques Cousteau, less so if you’re wandering through
the desert with Lawrence of Arabia. Fortunately, the universe of baseball is
far more limited, and a valuable player in New York would be a valuable
player in Los Angeles. Babe Ruth in a St. Louis Browns uniform would have
been no less Babe Ruth. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, value is value is
value. Had Derek Jeter made it to the majors with the 1996 Kansas City
Royals, he would still have 3,000 hits, would still be an all-time great
shortstop—he just wouldn’t have any rings. Once he’s on the field, a
player creates his own value; the rest is up to the general manager.
I am not necessarily endorsing Jose Bautista for the AL MVP award; there are
other, more useful arguments that can be made against him than his team’s
place in the standings, particularly a relatively quiet (.254/.412/.483, six
home runs through Sunday) second half. However, I would rather see him win it
than have this naïve confusion of baseball with a sport that can be rassled
down by one determined player—perhaps Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name in
flannel—continue instead of the game being understood as the team sport that
it is. As Calcaterra writes, “I don’t understand what good an award is if it
’s premised on completely and utterly divorcing it from the essence of the
game itself.”
No player can win as an island, a reality that would seem to do major damage
to the psycholotgical component of the "team in contention" argument. None of
us on the outside of Baustista's head can compare how he processes pressure
compared to Curtis Granderson (or vice-versa), but writers sure like to try,
claiming that the player on the contender is under greater stress than the
one on an also-ran. I'm not so sure. Who is under greater pressure, the good
player on a bad team, knowing that he must live up to being the club's sole
drawing card and offensive support, or Curtis Granderson, subject to a
different kind of expectations but surrounded by a strong supporting cast
that will pick up the club whenever he fails? The truth is probably that the
reaction will vary with the individual, and therefore generalizations of any
kind are useless. The only thing we can know for sure is that pressure comes
in all kinds of flavors, and that of being on a contender is far from the
only one.
In the article cited here, Heyman says that wins above replacement is a
flawed statistic because the weighting of its components can be arbitrary.
The different definitions of WAR or WARP, as opposed to, say, the singular
definition of batting average, no doubt makes the statistic harder to rely on
for some, though I see (pardon the expression) value in having more than one
formula: Unlike batting average, which is a simple mathematical fact, wins
above replacement is an estimate, and it’s not a bad thing to have a range
of competent estimates. When those estimates reach a consensus, you can be
more secure that you’re on the right track.
As such, I propose this to Mr. Heyman: Baseball Prospectus and
Baseball-Reference, which figure wins above replacement in slightly different
ways, agree that a season of 10.0 or more WARP is a rare and special thing.
We list 28 such seasons since 1950, they list 36. Whichever figure you
prefer, it’s a tiny fraction of the numerous full seasons that have been
recorded by players over the last 60 years. They also agree on the upper
limit of a players’ wins above replacement. BP ranks Barry Bonds’ 2001
season as the best since 1950 with 12.2 WARP. Baseball-Ref agrees, scoring
the season as worth 12.5 wins.
If that’s the most a player can give on the road to the 90 or 95 or 100 wins
it takes to compete in and win a division, then it is clear that no one
player can make the difference unless he is added to a roster that is already
nearly complete. Twelve wins isn’t even near half what a team needs to
contend, so doesn’t that admit the possibility that judging a player against
his team’s accomplishments is completely unfair?
Heyman indirectly acknowledges this possibility in his own MVP selections: He
lists two Yankees, two Tigers, and four Red Sox in the American League, two
Brewers, two Braves, two Cardinals, and two Phillies for the National League.
He missed the forest for his own trees.
Steven Goldman is an author of Baseball Prospectus. You can contact Steven by
clicking here or click here to see Steven's other articles.