MVP = Moronic Verducci Position

Some years there's a slam-dunk MVP vote. But whenever there isn't, and especially when there's a guy having a great season on a not-so-great team, we have to deal with it. The eternal conflict. "Should you only be the MVP if your team makes the playoffs?" The answer, of course, is no. And the history of baseball will bear that out. Albert Pujols won the MVP on a fourth-place team in 2008. The 2003 Rangers finished twenty games under .500, dead last in the AL West, but Alex Rodriguez was the MVP. And so on. Perhaps in really close cases you can make an argument for team quality as a tiebreaker... but I wouldn't. You try to find who had the best season. Period.

Unless you're Tom Verducci.

Here's his ballot as of now:

1. Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston*
2. Miguel Cabrera, Detroit
3. Justin Verlander, Detroit
4. Jose Bautista, Toronto
5. Curtis Granderson, New York
6. Dustin Pedroia, Boston
7. Robinson Cano, New York
8. Adrian Gonzalez, Boston
9. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay
10. Josh Hamilton, Texas

Okay, not bad. I don't know about Bautista being fourth, but hey. Ellsbury has a really good case to be MVP. But... wait a second. What's that asterisk?

Yes, there is an asterisk next to Ellsbury. This vote is not final. If Boston does not make the postseason, there is no sense in handing the MVP to a someone on the team that just staged the greatest September choke in the history of the sport. It would be like handing out Best Actor or Actress awards to anyone in Gigli.

Um...

God. Where to begin.

Okay, let's start here. Tom: you realize that a baseball team has 25 players on it, right? (In fact, in September it can have even more than that!) And you realize that Ellsbury is one dude. It is very difficult to will a team to victory all by yourself in baseball. And it is ESPECIALLY hard to do that when your pitching staff's ERA in September is 5.85!!! How much of that is Jacoby Ellsbury's fault, exactly? In 25 games in September, Ellsbury is hitting .373/.417/.682. In 120 plate appearances, he has 11 doubles, 7 home runs, and (if you like that sort of thing) 19 RBI. Even though he hits leadoff!

The best part is this: Verducci is basically saying that if Ellsbury goes 0-for-10 with seven strikeouts and falls down twice in the outfield in the next two games, but the Red Sox win them both and make the playoffs, he will vote for Ellsbury. But if Ellsbury goes 10-for-10 with five homers and robs two more over the wall, and the pitching sucks again and the Red Sox lose? Bum. Not the MVP.

The same thing happened in 2007. David Wright had a hot September - .352/.432/.602. In August he was even hotter, including a .516 on-base. But of course the 2007 Mets were choking dogs, blowing a seven-game lead with 17 games to play. This certainly was not Wright's fault, but nevertheless it was laid at his feet in the voting, where he finished a distant fourth. The winner was Jimmy Rollins, who won despite having distinctly inferior stats to Wright. But of course, his team caught Wright's, so even though Rollins put up a pretty meek .333 OBP in September, he was the MVP.

Now, this isn't fair to guys like Cabrera and Bautista, who both have great stat lines and would be perfectly good winners (Bautista more so, since his numbers are better and also he doesn't play first and do it not that well). But if you think Ellsbury is the MVP on September 27, then he's the MVP on September 29. Otherwise, what you're saying is you're basing the entire decision on two games, or a big 1.2% of the season.

But let's see if Tom can defend his position.

Sorry, Jacoby, but four of the 14 teams in your league make the playoffs. Only one AL player since the expanded format began in 1995 won the MVP for a non-playoff team (an enhanced Alex Rodriguez in 2003). Ellsbury can take home every Player of the Year Award that's out there, but this is Major League Baseball. The greatest value possible -- the reason these players play the game -- is to be a winner, and there are too many great candidates from too many available playoff spots.

No, I didn't think so. First of all, what voters have done in the past should not provide a bright-line directive for future ballots. Second of all, THERE ARE 25 GUYS, MORE IN FACT, ON EACH TEAM. Over the course of a season - since last time I checked this was not the MVPOCTIS (Most Valuable Player on a Contending Team in September) Award - Ellsbury has done as much to help his team win as anyone in the league. That you think this should be tossed out because of two games if the rest of his team does not live up to his performance is embarrassing. If Boston's pitching continues to get shelled, there is virtually nothing Ellsbury can do to singlehandedly save Boston's season. That is just not how baseball works.

That said, Ellsbury has been so phenomenal that Bautista could hit 10 more home runs and Ellsbury still would have more total bases than the Toronto outfielder. (All stats entering this week.) I'm okay with either Verlander or Cabrera taking the MVP if Boston completes its all-time collapse. Cabrera has reached base more times than anybody in the league, plays every day, leads all of MLB in batting with runners in scoring position, will win the batting title with an average near .340 and has the best adjusted OPS by anyone other than Bautista.

That's right. Ellsbury has been phenomenal. How phenomenal? So phenomenal he can't be MVP if his team's pitchers suck! That's how phenomenal. Fuck yeah.

(This graf tells you a lot about Verducci's thinking, or lack of it, by the way. Yes, Ellsbury has 359 TB to Bautista's 310. He also has 650 at-bats to Bautista's 506, in part because he hits leadoff but mostly because Bautista has walked 79 more times than Ellsbury. 310+79 = 30 more bases for Bautista. Oops. Total bases ignore walks and therefore don't mean a whole lot. Unsurprisingly, Bautista has 70 points of OBP on Ellsbury, along with 61 points of slugging. Now, Ellsbury plays center and does so pretty well, which makes his offense harder to replace than Bautista's. By that standard, if you want to say Ellsbury is more valuable, it's hard to argue. But the reason why is not his total bases. I'm not even going to touch Verducci citing Cabrera's average with RISP.)

Okay, how about Tom's NL MVP ballot?

1. Ryan Braun, Milwaukee
2. Matt Kemp, Los Angeles
3. Prince Fielder, Milwaukee
4. Albert Pujols, St. Louis
5. Justin Upton, Arizona
6. Lance Berkman, St. Louis
7. Joey Votto, Cincinnati
8. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado
9. Roy Halladay, Philadelphia
10. Shane Victorino, Philadelphia

Braun has had a great year. But he plays left, and not that well. Truthfully neither he nor Kemp is a great outfielder, but Kemp plays center, a much harder position at which to replace offense. With the two having fairly similar offensive lines, I would have broken the tie in Kemp's favor, for that reason.

See you if you can guess why Tom Verducci went the other way.

Kemp has put up a monster season with MVP numbers, leading the league in WAR, runs, total bases, home runs and RBIs. But his team, the Dodgers, didn't play a meaningful game for the last two-thirds of the season. Los Angeles was nine games out by the middle of June.

You hear that, Matt Kemp? Your team was bad! Therefore your numbers do not count. Never mind that you played all sorts of games against contending teams that certainly would not want you to do well against them and still did well against them. Never mind that you spent the season hitting in front of guys like Juan Uribe and Juan Rivera while Braun had the .400-OBPing Prince Fielder behind him. Never mind that you play in the NL West, maybe the toughest hitters' division in baseball, while Braun got to feast on a lousy NL Central. The team around you wasn't that good, so your season was irrelevant.

And this business that Kemp had no help in the lineup? Baloney. Kemp batted with 87 more runners on base than did Braun. Kemp had 24 more plate appearances with runners in scoring position -- and Braun was the better hitter in those spots (.347-.327). The seasons of Kemp and Braun are too close not to give it to the guy who delivered the most value in terms of context.

Dude, what are you TALKING about? Who cares about average, first? Kemp had a better OBP with runners in scoring position and with men on. See if you can guess why! That's right, it's my second point: PRINCE FUCKING FIELDER. When Kemp came up with men in scoring position, he could be walked - as he was 35 times out of 195 PAs - because pitchers were happy to take their chances with Juan Uribe, Juan Rivera, or the pu-pu platter of garbage hitting behind Kemp all year. 24 of those walks were intentional. You know how many times Ryan Braun was intentionally walked with RISP? TWO. You know why? BECAUSE THE GUY BEHIND HIM HAD A .400 OBP AND ONCE HIT 50 HOMERS IN A SEASON.

Ryan Braun had IMMENSE protection every time he came to the plate. Not once this year did Ron Roenicke fill out a lineup card that had anyone other than Prince Fielder hitting behind Ryan Braun. You know how many different guys have hit behind Kemp? TEN. Here's the list: James Loney, Marcus Thames, Juan Uribe, Jerry Sands, Jay Gibbons, Rod Barajas, Casey Blake, Juan Rivera, Aaron Miles, and Andre Ethier. Fielder has 35 home runs; this entire crew has 61, and the high man is Barajas (with 16), who served as Kemp's lineup protection all of once. Aaron Miles and his career 75 OPS+ hit behind Kemp more times than Barajas did. No one (except maybe in the late innings with a LOOGY waiting) was lining up to walk Braun so they could pitch to Fielder. Kemp could be walked with minimal fear. And Verducci's own rankings bear this out. The Brewers had a great season but they didn't win 115 games. You've got Braun and Fielder ranked 1 and 3. If Fielder is that good, can you really turn around and say Braun didn't have the help everyone thinks he did? No. He did have that help.

Again, Braun had a great year. But Kemp had as good or better a year, at a more premium defensive position, in a harder division in which to hit, AND he didn't get to play fully 44 of his games against the Astros, Cubs and Pirates, on whom Braun unsurprisingly feasted. Here's Braun's line against the Cardinals, by comparison: .225/.267/.366. So against the ONE OTHER DECENT TEAM IN HIS DIVISION, Braun absolutely gagged. It's a small sample size, of course, and you can only play the teams on the schedule. But if this is about "winning" and "coming up big for the team in big spots" - well, Braun really dogged it against Milwaukee's top contender.

Kemp, by comparison, destroyed divisional rivals. He hit .359/.446/.672 against the Giants, a team whose staff averaged this line against: .232/.309/.347. He hit .318/.408/.485 against the Padres, who play in the hitting-unfriendliest park in baseball and whose staff averaged .245/.313/.375 against.

In fact, how about this: against teams with a .500 record or better, Kemp hit .323/.390/.588. (He hit .324/.406/.580 - pretty much the same, if slightly better as you'd expect - against teams below .500.) Braun hit .337/.399/.643 against sub-.500 teams and .328/.395/.529 against those over .500. Also comparable numbers, but that's a pretty big dip in slugging. Anyway, the general point is that Kemp, no matter what you think about his team's quality, did not shrink from good teams, which to me is the only adequate notion of "pressure." Verducci suggests that because the Dodgers were nine games out by the middle of June, that presumably means their players no longer cared about the season. Uh, nine games out in the middle of June? We've just seen the Red Sox blow a nine-game lead over the course of SEPTEMBER. If "pressure" is real at all, I would think there'd be just as much on a team at the far fringes of contention to try to drag itself back into the race as on a team that's led its division for the better part of three months and watched its rivals disappear in the rear-view mirror.

Ryan Braun wouldn't be a travesty of an MVP vote. And neither would Miguel Cabrera, though there are many better choices. But the issue is how Verducci defends his votes, and what that says about how he understands baseball. And what it says is: he doesn't understand it nearly as well as he thinks he does.