In addition to being exciting and controversial, last night's tilt may have cost Peavy a Cy Young -- "not a big game pitcher," grumbles Johnny Sportswriter -- and gave Matt Holliday an MVP -- "wow, look at that white guy bleed!"
Not that Holliday may not deserve it in a thin year MVP candidate-wise, but my guess is more minds were made up by the slide and cut chin than any kind of rigorous analysis of value.
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Can a player be the MVP based on a slide where he never touched the plate, and the umpire called him safe regardless?
Voters will penalize the ump, not Holliday for that. My guess is that they see a bleeding face, nearly 140 RBIs, and an exciting game and that stuff causes them to vote Holliday.
Do you really think that last night's game will cost Peavy the Cy Young? Who would win if Peavy doesn't?
Probably won't cost him, actually, given your point (well taken) that there really isn't a close second in the NL. But it will certainly cost him votes. Many east coast voters probably haven't seen a lot of Peavy, and they will judge him based on last night's game and some assumption that he is somehow not a "big game" pitcher.
I guess I'd need to think a bit more about what your definition of a 'thin field' of MVP candidates constitutes. Based on the past several years, I think this is actually a tough field to figure...there's J Rollins, Prince Fielder, Holliday, David Wright, etc.
Of course, even more important is how you define MVP. Personally, I think that offensive stats and personal accomplishment has overshadowed what the award SHOULD mean, but that's just me. In my mind the NL MVP is probably Rollins (and the AL would be Jorge Posada...consistent ALL season, not just 5 months, and had to not only catch, but deal with all those rookie pitchers...say what you will about the Yankees chances without ARod, but they'd be NOWHERE without Posada this year). I mean, what is value? Run production? Defense? Leadership? All of the above?
I could launch into a similar tirade about Rookie of the Year (Tulowitzki and Padroia) if you like...
Osmodious: I think you're right. Poor choice of words on my part. It's far from a "thin" field. It is a harder than usual field to handicap, though, and the lack of a mortal-lock candidate was what I was clumsily trying to get at with that comment.
It's normally my desire to avoid the standard columns about MVP races and such, but I will probably post something late tonight or tomorrow morning with my take on the issues you raise.
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