[Stardust]

Voters never vote for pitchers for MVP for a few reasons, they don't play every day and the Cy Young award is already based on the "best pitcher". Any opinions on whether Pitchers can and should be deserving of the award? Clemons won the award when he was in Toronto, but that is one of the few exceptions.

[LWC]

I say no for reasons you already listed.

Regular Season-NO
Post Season- YES

[Aslan]

Say a team wins 100 games and a pitcher gets credited with 25 of those wins. If a player is directly responsible for 1/4 of your team wins, shouldn't he be in consideration for MVP?

[Stardust]

Say a team wins 100 games and a pitcher gets credited with 25 of those wins. If a player is directly responsible for 1/4 of your team wins, shouldn't he be in consideration for MVP?

I like your thinking

[Stardust]

I say no for reasons you already listed.

Regular Season-NO
Post Season- YES

Why would you give credence to an everyday player over a pitcher?

[Strikeout King]

No and Yes. In the Regular season the best pitchers win the CY Young Award. Why would the same pitcher need to be the MVP?

Playoffs is a different story so yes.

[Stardust]

Most Valuable Player = Best player in the league

Cy Young = Best Pitcher
Gold Glove = Best Defensive Position Player
Silver Slugger = Best hitter

So why can't a pitcher win the Cy Young and still not be considered as the best player in the league? If the best hitter wins, are they not eligible to win the MVP?

[LWC]

The pitcher might get 30 starts in a 162 game season. The argument is often used that they are directly responsible for the 20-25 wins that they have. Remember, a catcher is catching and calling those pitches (manager too, sure), and the defense is making outs when a ball gets hit. Also, outside of a handful of pitchers, they are scoring ZERO of their runs. So they are not responsible for putting runs on the board.

Let's say Kobe Bryant is directly responsible for 15 NBA wins for the Lakers (fairly close to same ratio of 25 wins out of 100). If he does not even play in the other 45 games, how can he be the MVP? The 50 PPG might look good, but if it is only 15 games then it kinda pails.

SK and I agree that in the post-season where a pitchers plays in more games, I am cool with it.

If we went back to the old days where a CY Young would pitch every 2 or 3 days, I could see more of an argument for it. Today, the pitcher doesn't even finish the whole game, most of the time. They pitch 6 or 7 innings, a set-up man comes in, followed by a closer.

What if your "MVP" pitcher is a pitch-to-contact pitcher? Doesn't the defense get half the credit?

I could see a VERY strong case for a player like Justin Verlander. If he had a record like 30-5 with an ERA under 2 and 8 or 9 K's per game, and the team gave him very little run support and they won their division with 80-something wins. If he is directly responsible for carrying a bad team to the playoffs, I would potentially vote for him. His supporting cast has to be terrible though.

I mean right now with the incredible year that Verlander has had, how do you give him the MVP over a guy like Adrian Gonzalez? An everyday player that has over 100 RBI, 20 or 30 HR's, and is hitting almost 350 AND is a gold-glove contender?

Another case that I MIGHT consider a pitcher for MVP would be if it was a terrible year for offense. If the leading everyday candidate has a .305 20HR 100RBI season, I might consider a 25-30 win pitcher with a sub 2 era and 8 or 9 K's per game.

[Strikeout King]

after thinking about it, I'm gonna make some changes to my answer:

If a pitcher plays better than any other player in baseball (Hitters, Pitchers, Fielders, etc. etc.) there's no reason for him not to win the MVP BUT if he doesn't and there's someone else out there that is the better player then the award should go to that player.

If a pitcher plays better than anyone in the post season then he should win it BUT if he plays great through the regular season and wins the CY Young Award and then pitches horribly in the post season then no he does not deserve the post-season MVP


so my answer is still no and yes

[Stardust]

Besides the first baseman, who is involved in no more than 27 plays defensively, the rest of 7 fielding positions are involved in no more than 10 plays per game each. The starting pitcher conversely is involved in an average 80+ defensive plays per game (yes, throwing the baseball is a defensive play). Thus, in the 30 games that pitcher starts, is he not more involved than all of his fielders? Most of the game the fielders have no involvment in the game at all. So who is working harder? The only other person that works as hard as the pitcher, who has the ball in his hands on every single play, is the catcher. But the catcher still does not touch the ball on every play!

Let's take the other side that a non-pitcher will have as many as 600 at bats. So does that give him the advantage? I think not - the Pitcher will face an average of 900 batters, a 1/3 more batting situations than a fielder.

[Aslan]

^Agreed Stardust. I also think it'd be rare for one particular fielder to be directly responsible for 25 wins, like a pitcher can be.

[Stardust]

^ Probably the best argument yet is exactly what you said. There would not likely be a single player responsible as much as a pitcher. And then there are the times that the players around the pitcher do not do their job. How often do pitchers lose games because they get no offense around them, poor defensive execution, or blown saves? Pitcher bares more brunt than any single player on the roster and he can only do his job once every four games, which is an indication that the rest of the players do not have to play as hard as he does.