MLB 2012

Off Topic
761

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

[/quote]
Quite frankly Raj, this post pretty much invalidates anything you have to say about baseball from all but a purely statistical standpoint. The more I think about it the more it becomes clear to me that you simply have no fucking clue what playing a sport is like at all. Everyone who’s played sports knows that certain teammates have a sort of inspirational effect on the team and others have a detrimental effect. Some players are leaders and some are not.

In fact, what really makes this statement of yours totally ridiculous is the fact that in many other facets of life people can influence how those around them perform. The workplace is a perfect example. Sometimes it’s simply friendly competition and in other cases it’s more of an “I don’t want to let this guy down so I’m going to really grind away at this” sort of thing.

Posey was also voted the Willie Mac Award winner, which is the most prestigious award the team hands out to one of its players each year. It goes to the most inspirational player on the team. I think that alone pretty much proves you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about when you say that players have no control over the performance of their teammates. Unless you’ve never been someone’s teammate you would understand this.

Of course, I’m sure you actually have played some sport at some level somewhere in life and that you were on a team. So what really invalidates your argument is that you know it’s true but you’re resorting to all sorts of bullshit, hypocritical arguments simply because you don’t like the Giants or anything to do with them because you associate them with me.

762

Posey will win the NL MVP with Braun in second and McCutchen a very distant third.

763

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

MY MVPs:

AL: Mike Trout

NL: McCutchen

[/quote]
Obviously you’ve never played sports then. Teammates can certainly affect how the team as a whole plays. It’s not shit that you see on the field necessarily but in the clubhouse and that sort of thing. [/quote]

Individual influence over team:

Basketball>Football>Baseball.

Raj is right.

764

[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

MY MVPs:

AL: Mike Trout

NL: McCutchen

[/quote]
Obviously you’ve never played sports then. Teammates can certainly affect how the team as a whole plays. It’s not shit that you see on the field necessarily but in the clubhouse and that sort of thing. [/quote]

Individual influence over team:

Basketball>Football>Baseball.

Raj is right.
[/quote]
If Raj had said that basketball players have a larger impact on how their teams play than baseball players he MIGHT be correct. But that isn’t what he said at all.

Regardless, he’s wrong and so are you. Have you ever even played a team sport at a fairly high level? Ever played any sports at the NCAA level? Shit, have you ever even played a team sport in high school?

Posey is the leader of that team and has been since the day he was permanently called up. The “control” he has is that he leads by example. I just heard Hunter Pence yesterday talking about how Posey is the epitome of professionalism and that the way he comes to work everyday and leaves it all on the field is inspirational for the rest of the team. When a player like that leads by example and is very successful it has a large impact on the play of the rest of the team. There’s a reason why the 2010 Giants overachieved, the current team is essentially overachieving as well, and the old Barry Bonds teams routinely underperformed.

Just because Posey is one guy out of 9 instead of one out 5 means nothing. He has a huge impact on the rest of the team in ways that don’t show up in box scores. This probably applies to McCutchen as well, but the fact remains that he has been a slightly above average player the last month or so while his team has nosedived and Posey has been hitting about .400 for the last three months while his team has remained in first place.

765

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

McCutchen is the best player on a team that shit all over themselves for the entire second half of the season. Braun is the best player on a team that isn’t relevant at all and only enters the periphery of the postseason discussion because of the second Wild Card. The Brewers are not a good team. Posey is the best player on one of the top teams in baseball and has carried his team to that position. [/quote]

Periphery of the postseason discussion? You should know as well as anyone as a Giants fan that if you can get your foor in the postseason door anything can happen. They are 1.5 games out and on fire. Bruan has lead a team that lost Prince in the offseason decided to dump it’s best pitcher at the trade deadline, to a potential playoff birth. It’s definitely arguable who is more valuable between him and Posey. I agree Posey at catcher is in a more valuable position for his team, but Braun has had more offensive production (more hr, steals, rbi, higher OPS, WAR.)

766

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

McCutchen is the best player on a team that shit all over themselves for the entire second half of the season. Braun is the best player on a team that isn’t relevant at all and only enters the periphery of the postseason discussion because of the second Wild Card. The Brewers are not a good team. Posey is the best player on one of the top teams in baseball and has carried his team to that position. [/quote]

Periphery of the postseason discussion? You should know as well as anyone as a Giants fan that if you can get your foor in the postseason door anything can happen. They are 1.5 games out and on fire. Bruan has lead a team that lost Prince in the offseason decided to dump it’s best pitcher at the trade deadline, to a potential playoff birth. It’s definitely arguable who is more valuable between him and Posey. I agree Posey at catcher is in a more valuable position for his team, but Braun has had more offensive production (more hr, steals, rbi, higher OPS, WAR.) [/quote]
Fair enough. But McCutchen is playing himself right out of the MVP discussion. His numbers look great because of a huge first half. Since then, he’s coasted at about a .300 clip. Which is good, but Posey has been hitting at a .395 clip over the same time and his team is following his lead.

767

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

MY MVPs:

AL: Mike Trout

NL: McCutchen

[/quote]
Obviously you’ve never played sports then. Teammates can certainly affect how the team as a whole plays. It’s not shit that you see on the field necessarily but in the clubhouse and that sort of thing. [/quote]

So you think the extremely poor pitching performance by the Pirates staff in August and September should play a role in evaluating McCutchen’s MVP candidacy?

They posted a 4.39 ERA in August and a 4.99 ERA in September thus far.

For anyone else who agrees team performance should play a role in MVP consideration, please answer this question as well.

[/quote]

If you have 2 guys with very similar stats, then I think it can be a sort of tie breaker. One of the BBTN analyst the other night (I think Boone) said of a guy on a last place team, “they could have got last without him, so how valuable can he be?” Adrian Gonzalez was in the MVP discussion last year, but there was no chance of him winning it after the Red Sox collapse, and I think rightfully so. I put McCutchen in the same category with the Pirates collapse. You can say it’s all the pitching, but it seems the Pirates have lost a lot of close games at a time when McCutchen’s production has declined a bit. I think generally, you need to be on a team that atleast competes for a playoff spot, so I wouldn’t discount Cabrera (obvioulsy haha) or Trout.

768

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
No,

[/quote]

Can we at least agree McCutchen has NO impact (or miniscule at best) on the pitching staff of the Pirates?

From April to July the staff averaged a 3.6 ERA vs a mid 4 ERA in August and September thus far.

Now lets look at the number of runs scored by the Pirates:

April 58

May 89

June 146

july 130

August 121

Sept 69 (thus far)

So they’ve averaged just over 4 runs/game in the first 150 games and have 12 games left to play. If I were to prorate their September runs scored total it would give us an anticipated total runs scored in September of 117.

12 games left X 4 runs a game = 48

48 expected runs + 69 current runs = 117

So in the months they were doing well (April-July) they averaged 105 runs while in August-September while they were terrible they averaged 119 runs.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

but I think there is a direct link between the improved play of Posey and the corresponding improved play of the Giants’ offense as a whole during that same stretch. [/quote]

How big an effect do you think he has, and how much weighting does it deserve in his MVP candidacy?

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Don’t forget that the name of the award is Most VALUABLE Player. Well, how much value can a guy really have if he’s playing out of his ass and the rest of the team is going into the shitter? [/quote]

Honestly, you might as well rename the award to Most Valuable Player on a contending team.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

But some players simply have the “it” factor and Posey has had it the entire second half. [/quote]

…

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Team performance should definitely play a role, but it shouldn’t be the final arbiter. But it should definitely be a factor.[/quote]

Throughout the course of the season, McCutchen has outplayed Posey in terms of total production on the field. There’s no denying that.

Do you honestly believe team performance is enough of a factor that it should boost Posey’s overall value above McCutchen’s? This after I’ve showed you the Pirates pitching staff should get the lion share of the blame for the August-September collapse.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

There is simply no getting around the fact that while McCutchen has played pretty well the last two months, Posey has been much, much better over the same time frame. [/quote]

Irrelevant. It’s a full season award not best player in the 2nd half.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

And while McCutchen’s play has definitely leveled out a bit over the last two months, his team has taken a serious nosedive. Posey’s play has been absolutely outstanding since the All-Star break and so has his team’s play. There is definitely a correlation there regarding both players. [/quote]

I addressed this above.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

And again, you aren’t taking into consideration defense. [/quote]

No, I have. Even with the greater difficulty in catching McCutchen has still been better overall. Plus, he also plays up the middle, the difference is nowhere near as what it would be if he were at a corner position.

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

Your argument, of course, is ignorant and borne of the fact that you have forced yourself to argue this way since your favorite player (Bautista) will never play on a contending Blue Jays team so you have to try and pump him and his play up by devaluing the success of the team he plays for in regards to his MVP chances from year to year. It’s a dishonest, fallacious argument that you would NOT be making if Bautista had been playing on a contender the last two years.[/quote]

LOL

769

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

[/quote]
Quite frankly Raj, this post pretty much invalidates anything you have to say about baseball from all but a purely statistical standpoint. The more I think about it the more it becomes clear to me that you simply have no fucking clue what playing a sport is like at all. Everyone who’s played sports knows that certain teammates have a sort of inspirational effect on the team and others have a detrimental effect. Some players are leaders and some are not.

In fact, what really makes this statement of yours totally ridiculous is the fact that in many other facets of life people can influence how those around them perform. The workplace is a perfect example. Sometimes it’s simply friendly competition and in other cases it’s more of an “I don’t want to let this guy down so I’m going to really grind away at this” sort of thing.

Posey was also voted the Willie Mac Award winner, which is the most prestigious award the team hands out to one of its players each year. It goes to the most inspirational player on the team. I think that alone pretty much proves you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about when you say that players have no control over the performance of their teammates. Unless you’ve never been someone’s teammate you would understand this.

Of course, I’m sure you actually have played some sport at some level somewhere in life and that you were on a team. So what really invalidates your argument is that you know it’s true but you’re resorting to all sorts of bullshit, hypocritical arguments simply because you don’t like the Giants or anything to do with them because you associate them with me.[/quote]

Tell that to John Daniels or Theo Epstein or Alex Anthopolous.

How have they done without ever playing a sport at a high level?

770

So how much blame does Posey deserve for Lincecum’s bad year? Or what about Cain’s good year?

771

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

If you have 2 guys with very similar stats, then I think it can be a sort of tie breaker. One of the BBTN analyst the other night (I think Boone) said of a guy on a last place team, “they could have got last without him, so how valuable can he be?” Adrian Gonzalez was in the MVP discussion last year, but there was no chance of him winning it after the Red Sox collapse, and I think rightfully so. I put McCutchen in the same category with the Pirates collapse. You can say it’s all the pitching, but it seems the Pirates have lost a lot of close games at a time when McCutchen’s production has declined a bit. I think generally, you need to be on a team that atleast competes for a playoff spot, so I wouldn’t discount Cabrera (obvioulsy haha) or Trout. [/quote]

If Miggy were to put up these same numbers with a team of minor leaguers (like say the Astros) should he be valued less?

772

[quote]therajraj wrote:
So how much blame does Posey deserve for Lincecum’s bad year? Or what about Cain’s good year?
[/quote]
You just don’t get it Raj. I’m not going to be baited into this discussion with you any further since we clearly aren’t operating on a level of mutual respect here.

I’ll tell you what. If McCutchen wins the MVP award I will NEVER come onto this site again.

773

I will say this in regards to your comment about Epstein, et al.

I think that Epstein revealed that he too does not understand the impact certain players have on the team, as evidenced by the multiple big-name jerks he signed over the last two years, all of which have been disasters. Adrian Gonzalez, resigning Beckett and signing Lackey are all clear signs that he doesn’t understand the clubhouse dynamics that are SO important to a team’s success.

Had he played at some sort of significant level he might understand that a player’s value isn’t measured strictly in terms of statistics. He probably wouldn’t have thrown the kitchen sink at a jerk like Gonzalez if he understood this. The fact that Gonzalez and Beckett aren’t even there and the team that HE put together has been quite possibly the biggest embarrassment in North American professional sports the last two years speaks volumes about Epstein’s failure to understand this aspect of the game.

774

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

If you have 2 guys with very similar stats, then I think it can be a sort of tie breaker. One of the BBTN analyst the other night (I think Boone) said of a guy on a last place team, “they could have got last without him, so how valuable can he be?” Adrian Gonzalez was in the MVP discussion last year, but there was no chance of him winning it after the Red Sox collapse, and I think rightfully so. I put McCutchen in the same category with the Pirates collapse. You can say it’s all the pitching, but it seems the Pirates have lost a lot of close games at a time when McCutchen’s production has declined a bit. I think generally, you need to be on a team that atleast competes for a playoff spot, so I wouldn’t discount Cabrera (obvioulsy haha) or Trout. [/quote]

If Miggy were to put up these same numbers with a team of minor leaguers (like say the Astros) should he be valued less?[/quote]

He didn’t put up those numbers with a team of minor leaguers so the point is immaterial.

775

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

If you have 2 guys with very similar stats, then I think it can be a sort of tie breaker. One of the BBTN analyst the other night (I think Boone) said of a guy on a last place team, “they could have got last without him, so how valuable can he be?” Adrian Gonzalez was in the MVP discussion last year, but there was no chance of him winning it after the Red Sox collapse, and I think rightfully so. I put McCutchen in the same category with the Pirates collapse. You can say it’s all the pitching, but it seems the Pirates have lost a lot of close games at a time when McCutchen’s production has declined a bit. I think generally, you need to be on a team that atleast competes for a playoff spot, so I wouldn’t discount Cabrera (obvioulsy haha) or Trout. [/quote]

If Miggy were to put up these same numbers with a team of minor leaguers (like say the Astros) should he be valued less?[/quote]

I think in the end you have to call it what it is: Most Valuable Player, not most outstanding player. If Miggy was putting those numbers up for the stros instead of the tigers, I might go with trout over him as MVP. I can see both sides of the argument, but for me there some extra “value” in leading your team to the playoffs.

776

With Cabrera well ahead in BA and RBI and Hamilton out due to a sinus infection (what the fuck) Miggy WILL win the triple crown.

777

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I’ll tell you what. If McCutchen wins the MVP award I will NEVER come onto this site again. [/quote]

Quit being a drama queen.

I doubt they’ll give the award to McCutchen either.

778

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I will say this in regards to your comment about Epstein, et al.

I think that Epstein revealed that he too does not understand the impact certain players have on the team, as evidenced by the multiple big-name jerks he signed over the last two years, all of which have been disasters. Adrian Gonzalez, resigning Beckett and signing Lackey are all clear signs that he doesn’t understand the clubhouse dynamics that are SO important to a team’s success.

Had he played at some sort of significant level he might understand that a player’s value isn’t measured strictly in terms of statistics. He probably wouldn’t have thrown the kitchen sink at a jerk like Gonzalez if he understood this. The fact that Gonzalez and Beckett aren’t even there and the team that HE put together has been quite possibly the biggest embarrassment in North American professional sports the last two years speaks volumes about Epstein’s failure to understand this aspect of the game.[/quote]

He won 2 Championships in the 7 years he was there. Come on now.

But Yes he fucked up a bunch at the very end.

779

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

MY MVPs:

AL: Mike Trout

NL: McCutchen

[/quote]
Obviously you’ve never played sports then. Teammates can certainly affect how the team as a whole plays. It’s not shit that you see on the field necessarily but in the clubhouse and that sort of thing. [/quote]

Individual influence over team:

Basketball>Football>Baseball.

Raj is right.
[/quote]
If Raj had said that basketball players have a larger impact on how their teams play than baseball players he MIGHT be correct. But that isn’t what he said at all.

Regardless, he’s wrong and so are you. Have you ever even played a team sport at a fairly high level? Ever played any sports at the NCAA level? Shit, have you ever even played a team sport in high school?

Posey is the leader of that team and has been since the day he was permanently called up. The “control” he has is that he leads by example. I just heard Hunter Pence yesterday talking about how Posey is the epitome of professionalism and that the way he comes to work everyday and leaves it all on the field is inspirational for the rest of the team. When a player like that leads by example and is very successful it has a large impact on the play of the rest of the team. There’s a reason why the 2010 Giants overachieved, the current team is essentially overachieving as well, and the old Barry Bonds teams routinely underperformed.

Just because Posey is one guy out of 9 instead of one out 5 means nothing. He has a huge impact on the rest of the team in ways that don’t show up in box scores. This probably applies to McCutchen as well, but the fact remains that he has been a slightly above average player the last month or so while his team has nosedived and Posey has been hitting about .400 for the last three months while his team has remained in first place.[/quote]

The roots of Raj’s statement are team performance affecting MVP choice. In baseball you don’t really have to consider team record too stringently because baseball is so segregated in terms of positions, which ultimately determine the outcome of games. For example, McCutchen has no influence over the Pirates’ crappy pitching unit.

This is also true in football but you just feel football teams are more ‘connected’ than baseball teams. There’s an emotional energy in football that you can see in huddles and on the sideline, whereas in baseball you have guys by themselves in the dug out chewing and spitting.

780

[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]Gettnitdone wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:
It’s stupid to factor in the team’s performance in MVP. A player has almost no control over how his teammates perform, this isn’t basketball.

MY MVPs:

AL: Mike Trout

NL: McCutchen

[/quote]
Obviously you’ve never played sports then. Teammates can certainly affect how the team as a whole plays. It’s not shit that you see on the field necessarily but in the clubhouse and that sort of thing. [/quote]

Individual influence over team:

Basketball>Football>Baseball.

Raj is right.
[/quote]
If Raj had said that basketball players have a larger impact on how their teams play than baseball players he MIGHT be correct. But that isn’t what he said at all.

Regardless, he’s wrong and so are you. Have you ever even played a team sport at a fairly high level? Ever played any sports at the NCAA level? Shit, have you ever even played a team sport in high school?

Posey is the leader of that team and has been since the day he was permanently called up. The “control” he has is that he leads by example. I just heard Hunter Pence yesterday talking about how Posey is the epitome of professionalism and that the way he comes to work everyday and leaves it all on the field is inspirational for the rest of the team. When a player like that leads by example and is very successful it has a large impact on the play of the rest of the team. There’s a reason why the 2010 Giants overachieved, the current team is essentially overachieving as well, and the old Barry Bonds teams routinely underperformed.

Just because Posey is one guy out of 9 instead of one out 5 means nothing. He has a huge impact on the rest of the team in ways that don’t show up in box scores. This probably applies to McCutchen as well, but the fact remains that he has been a slightly above average player the last month or so while his team has nosedived and Posey has been hitting about .400 for the last three months while his team has remained in first place.[/quote]

This is also true in football but you just feel football teams are more ‘connected’ than baseball teams. There’s an emotional energy in football that you can see in huddles and on the sideline, whereas in baseball you have guys by themselves in the dug out chewing and spitting.
[/quote]
This is the most ignorant statement I’ve heard in this thread. You, too, have invalidated yourself.

There’s an emotional energy that is clearly visible in the dugouts at all sorts of levels of play, including the professional level. I suppose you would have to have actually been in a dugout at some point to realize this.