“The reason I won this,” Braun said, “is because they put a better team around me. It’s a result of 25 other guys.”
^ Many may disagree, but I actually like Braun -- or, at least the way he handled winning/accepting the award. From saying he would have voted for Kemp (on ESPN), to this -- crediting his teammates, very classy.
I would hope no one disagrees with this. It's not Braun's fault he was on the beneficial side of what is a bad system. The writers/voters screwed Kemp not Braun. He was, imo anyway, the clear 2nd choice for MVP and there is a legitimate argument to be made in his favor for actually winning the award outright. Kemp was clearly the right choice and it was the writers who f*d up here, not Braun.
I just saw this. Let me sum this up for you: The 2006 Yankees won 97 games. They had 2 players bat above .290: Jeter and Cano. They had 2 players above 15 home runs: Damon and ARod. They had a rotation that consisted of: Mussina, Wang, Randy Johnson, Shawn Chacon, and Jaret Wright. Yankees won the AL East that year, only 2 years removed from the collapse to Boston and with a putrid rotation and a bullpen that essentially only consisted of Mo'. Jeter batted .343 with an OBP of .417. He hit 14 home runs and had 97 RBI's out of the 2-hole, with about 25 games batting third. He hit 39 doubles, scored 118 runs, and had 214 hits overall. More importantly than all of that, Jeter never had a *bad streak* and carried the Yankees through slumps by ARod, Damon, Cano, and everyone else essentially. He didn't have single month where he batted less than .290--batting .292 in May and .295 in August. He was ridiculous in July batting .417 and was literally the offensive leader down the stretch batting .360 in Sept/Oct. Morneau finished strong batting 5th behind Mauer and Hunter. However, up until June Morneau was batting .236 with 11 Home Runs and was actually benched by Gardenhire. He went on a hot streak after that. Mauer was the clear offensive juggernaut on that team and yet, considering the benching and the fact that he was batting fifth behind 2 superior players in his own manager's eye, Morneau beat Jeter by 3 points. As I said, it wasn't nearly the robbery that occurred this year but it was certainly a case in point where the voters didn't vote to give the award to the most deserving player, instead choosing not to give the award to another player for whatever bad reason they came up with at that point.
SI had an article saying Kemp had the best season since Bonds MVP year. the discrimination in the cy young has ended they need to get to the mvp now. credit the individual. its not a team award.
Welcome aboard. The problem is that the MVP can be interpreted to be a "team award". That's the part they need to correct. Without any real criteria, they can interpret it to mean whatever they want. The Cy Young award is clear--best pitcher. The team doesn't factor in, unless in the case of Felix, you want to defend a player for not having enough wins. Once they establish a criteria, robberies like the one that occurred this year won't happen.
