Will someone, anyone, please explain the MVP voting?

So by now all of you have heard that the awards for baseball have been handed out. All pretty much explanatory save for one huge surprise.

 

N.L. MVP

 

Somehow, someway, Paul Goldschmidt got robbed.

Before the voting was announced, all of the pundits, ESPN, FOX, TSN, MLB.com etc all predicted Goldschmidt in a runaway. No one was close.

And then voters voted. Perhaps these are the same people doing the HOF voting? Maybe they were busy buying porkbellies and didn't watch any actual baseball this year?
Did Selig open the MVP voting up to the fans like the *snicker* All Star game?

Maybe everyone was wrong.... maybe everyone was mistaken and the select dozen people knew something we didn't.... so let's delve into the stats and see.... I don't pretend to know much, so let's list off some FACTS.

Paul Goldschmidt led the National League in Home Runs(36), RBI's(125), extra base hits(75), total bases(332), Slugging % (.551), OPS (.952), Intentional walks (19), and then again in some catagories that all of you Bill James types worship.... stuff like RE24, WPA, WPA/LI, REW... all of those.

I'm not even going to begin to try and figure out what they are, but the next time Brad Pitt and I have a pop together, we'll get into it, I promise you.

How about the glove? Is Goldschmidt that bad with the leather? No. He led the National league in put outs at his position and was second in fielding percentage. (Second by .001%. That's pretty close if you ask me)

Hmmm... well how about when was he productive? When the game was on the line? Or not?

Well, Goldschmidt led ALL of baseball in go-ahead home runs(20), go-ahead RBI's(37), walk-off home runs (3), game-winning RBI's (19) and RBI's with runners in scoring position (84).

After the 7th inning, Paul Goldschmidt led the National League in home runs(13), RBI's(41) and hits (60).

Awesome.

Andrew McCutchen? The "winner"? He hit .317 with 21 Home runs, 84 RBI's, and 97 runs scored.

Paul Goldschmidt did that after the 7th inning. Imagine if we counted the first 6 innings? Wait. Shouldn't we?

And Pittsburgh being a playoff team has NOTHING to do with this. If anything, it favours Goldschmidt. Imagine what he could've done on a better team?

Paul Goldschmidt got robbed. This wasn't even a close contest.

Jim Plunkett... Hall of fame worthy...

so today is December 5th, 2011. Which happens to be Jim Plunkett's 64th birthday. I was planning on doing a post sometime this week on Jim, but Hackenbush's "You Can't Have Too Many Cards" told me this morning that it was his birthday. So we have to quickly adapt and move plans forward a bit.

At the last trade night I went to, I picked up a few 1976 Topps football cards out of the Quarter box.... er... Quarter binder actually.

One of them, surprise!, was Jim Plunkett.

Now some of you out there may not know who Jim Plunkett is. Let me enlighten you on someone who deserves the recognition.
Jim is a guy who worked four part time jobs through junior high school and high school to help with the familie's financial situation. His mother was blind, and his father, due to a medical condition, was going blind.
Jim earned a full scholarship to Stanford University where he would play his college football.

Despite being encouraged by the NFL to come out early after his junior year for the NFL draft, Jim stayed in school for his senior year to be a good role model to the grade school kids that he tutored in his spare time.

During his Senior seasonin 1970, Plunkett led Stanford to it's first Rose Bowl win over Ohio State, earning the Heisman Trophy as best college football player, beating out Joe Theisman and Archie Manning.

Plunkett was drafted first overall by the Boston Patriots and set rookie records for touchdown passes his first season.
Jim ended up being traded to San Francisco for their starting QB, three 1st round picks, and a 2nd round pick.

Fast forward a bit, towards the end of Jim's career. It's 1981 and Plunkett is a backup with the Raiders. Due to an injury to starting QB Dan Pastorini, Jim took over the starting job and guided the Raiders to 13 wins over the next 15 games, including four in the playoffs, to lead the Raiders to a Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XV, becoming the first 'Wild Card' team to win the title. Jim also took home Super Bowl MVP.
Three years later, another injury to a starting QB, this time Marc Wilson, had Jim leading the Raiders into the playoffs once more, and once more winning the Super Bowl, defeating Washington.

If the whole 'race' thing matters to you at all, Jim was the first Latino to be a Rose Bowl winning QB. The first to win the Heisman. The first, and only, to be drafted 1st overall. The first to start a Super Bowl at QB, the first to win a Super Bowl, the first to win Super Bowl MVP. The first, and only to start and win multiple Super Bowls.

Jim Plunkett is also the only QB of any race to ever start multiple Super Bowls, and the first to win multiple Super Bowls, and NOT be elected into the Hall of Fame.
Why the heck he is not in the Hall I will never understand. We're voting guys in every year like Rod Woodson for god's sake, and we can't elect Plunkett???

Anyways... if you've stayed this long, I thank you. And next time you see a Quarter box, or binder, give it another look. You never know what you might find. There's some interesting stories hidden away in there.

BwahahahhaHAHAAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The American Gold Glove winners were announced today.... and let's just say that apparently a blind man used a dart board to pick some of the winners as Derek Jeter............

wait. I made someone a promise. Dangit. I can't say anything more for at least 36 hours..... ARGH!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

This just in, a panel of drunken homeless people left over from the ticker tape parade have voted to give Derek Jeter, one of baseball's most horrendous shortstops, a gold glove for his "work" this year.
*crickets*

Yes, you read that correctly. Even ESPN has published an article questioning the mental stability of the voting panel. And you know if ESPN says something disparaging about the Yankees, it must be bad. After all, they had to crawl out of Jeter's ass to write it in the first place.

Derek Jeter UZR for 2009 - 6.6
Erik Aybar UZR for 2009 - 7.8
Elvis Andrus UZR for 2009 - 10.7

EDIT: I forgot about Cesar Izturis UZR 10.8 and Adam Everett UZR 8.9


The voters remarked on how Jeter committed the fewest errors of his career. That's because he couldn't bend over to pick anything up, let alone bobble it. A statue would commit ZERO errors. Let's give it a gold glove.

They probably would if it was wearing pinstripes.

Idiots.

All Star votes...

I'm getting further and further behind in my posts.... so rather than catch up, I thought I'd annoy a few people first.

What the hell are people thinking with their "All Star" votes? I know this a fan friendly event (notice I didn't say game) but really people.

Yadier Molina????????? Holy crap.

David Wright? He's not even the best 3rd baseman in his division, let alone league...

Alfonso Soriano?????

Jimmy Rollins????

Josh Hamilton??? At least Josh is an All Star, but being injured should have removed him from contention long ago.

Apparently there are 1.7 million mentally handicapped people running around in Yadier Molina jerseys with crumpled all star ballots in one fist and broken crayons in the other. Who knew his mom knew so many "special" people?

Donald Fehr is gone, when can we get rid of Selig and just START THE HELL OVER?

WTF?!

What the motherloving hell is going on here???
First off, a big congratulations to Braves catcher Brian McCann for winning a Silver Slugger Award. Very deserved.
But how in the hell can a guy like David Wright win one over Chipper Jones?
Chipper only, I dunno, won a batting title this season. If he hadn't got hurt, would've had a case for MVP...

Seriously? David Freakin' Wright?
Unbelievable....