To what degree do you think the baseball writers do on voting, both post season awards and the Hall of Fame?

Question

This topic came up in a previous question I had. I make no bones about the fact that I think the current status of dispensing awards and Hall of Fame entries is woeful. However, some disagree. So how do you think they do? No 10 points for merely agreeing with me. That goes to the one who expresses himself best. But now is a chance to get it off your chest! How do they do?

Answer 1

ROY Awards -- excellent.

Cy Young Awards -- pretty good. Tend to fixate on wins too much, but sometimes that gives the correct result.

Managers -- okay, I suppose. Tends to go to the manager who most surpassed media expectations and therefore surprised them, so these tend to be rather predictable.

MVPs -- while they never pick a bad candidate, they too often pick a lesser performance involved in a more dramatic storyline than a greater performance out of, or merely on the fringes of, a pennant race. I disagree that "drama" constitutes "value".

The Hall -- the BBWAA makes the occasional borderline election (Puckett the most recent), but overall the writers have done a very good, even excellent, job of upholding the standards of entry. They have been a responsible and dutiful gatekeeping electorate. (The old VC, abolished after 2001, was more than willing to set the bar lower, reaching its nadir when Frisch was VC chair. Never met a teammate he didn't think was the greatest ever.)

Answer 2

Actually, the writers have virtually always done a better job than the Veteran's Committee in electing players to the Hall. I would rather that they might overlook a few than cheapen it.
On the voting, too few of them have embraced new statistical measures. Hitting the most RBI for a winning club and winning the most games tends to be the easy way for them to select the winnners of regular season awards. But fans are just as bad or worse--witness how many people here say that Beckett should have won the Cy Young based on his post-season play--a consideration which is not part of the voting.

On the other hand, I think that anyone able to pass a relatively difficult test should be able to do the voting. Membership in the BBWAA should not be the only way to participate.

Answer 3

As far as the HOF goes...they do a very good job....they missed Blyleven, Santo...and maybe Puckett is a little short...but those are all at the margins..

The post-season awards however are different...They miss those almost every year..

This year alone...Rollins is at best the 4th most valuable....H Ramirez, D Wright, M Holliday were all more valuable this year.

However, it is hard to complain too much...because the BBWAA has failed to define a criteria on what basis one should vote. Therefore every voter uses his or her own interpretation as to what an MVP is, and what it means.

This leads to chaos...now who wins R.O.Y, C.Y.A, M.O.Y and M.V.P certainly is not a life or death decision..but what validity does an award have...when the group awarding can't agree on what it is supposed to be for?

Some will say...

1. The best player...or
2. The Most valuable player or
3. The most valuable player to his team....or
4. The most valuable contribution to a winning team..or
5 The clutchiest player who was also pretty valuable...or
6. The guy who came out of nowhere to have a fluke year and lead an otherwise underdog to a pennant....or
7. The best player with the most sentimental story line..or
8. The guy with the best looking wife...or
9......or...or.....or..

get the point...

Now all these basis' are valid, it is not up to me to say which criteria to use...however...They should at least attempt to use one.

How many times have we heard things like..

Boy, if the Angels could just pull off winning the pennant...Roger Repoz should be the MVP...otherwise I gotta give it to Don Mincher....

Now if Roger Repoz is the more valuable player...what does the skills of the 24 guys around him matter? Either he is more valuable than Mincher, or he isn't.

Now if Don Mincher plays with Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Dean Chance, Jim Kaat, Earl Battey and Mudcat Grant...and he wins the pennant..how would that make him more valuable than Roger Repoz who plays with Tom Satriano, Rick Reichardt, Bill Voss, Bobby Knoop, Tom Murphy and Marcelino Lopez?

It doesn't, and that there is the issue...if the Twins win..it's Mincher, if the Angels win..it's Repoz...even though Repoz pulled those bums a lot further than Mincher pulled those stars..MVP awards are personal awards and should be judged as such.

In reality...since he took the field as an 18 year old...AROD has been the MVP almost every year....same with much of the last 12 years in the NL...Bonds.

Mantle was the MVP every year from about 56-64...same with Mays...but they didn't win it every year.

What the BBWAA has created is a political award and a popularity contest. It is no different in voting concept than the Emmy's, Oscar's or Grammy's.

It is hard therefore to be overly critical of the choices...when the voters themselves are not really sure of on what basis they are choosing.

In MHO, the awards should go to the best players, the players that had the best year, regardless of how good his teammates are....

Answer 4

It seems to me that if anyone should know this game - it's the people who write about it everyday of the week. They should not only have an understanding of the ins and outs, the day to day working of the game but at a deeper level, understand the players, the coaches, the GMs - all the people who make up the game. There should be a passion for the game, one that seeks to report all that happens and by doing so improve what is our National Pastime.

Having said that - there are times when personal preference, obvious favoritism and sometimes downright stupidity have shown through in what those individuals write and say, how they vote and what opinions they voice.

I don't know that they do as well as they could, but they do better than . . .say . . . allowing the general populace to vote (exhibit 1 - the all star game) . . . or allowing the players and coaches only to vote.

I believe there might be a better way - but I am not sure I know just what that is. . . so for now this is the best we have. That does not mean it is the best that could be. . .

Answer 5

Well I think last year's HOF voting was a joke - Ripken and Gwynn were not unanimous. Obviously something is wrong. One putz from South Chicago said he couldn't vote for anyone from the steroid era.

However, I dont' really have a better suggestion of how voting should be conducted. Heavens knows the fans shouldn't do it - look at all-star voting. All the teenage girls will vote Johnny Damon into the HOF cause he has nice hair and buns.

I'm really not sure there is a better alternative - I think you just have to take all awards with a grain of salt and realize where they came from and who voted for them.