Jayson Stark's season awards

by Alan Smithee on Sep 30, 2006 5:27 PM CDT

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2607487

Wow, these are pretty amazingly bad selections for a national columnist.

Morneau as AL MVP(who would be about fourth, behind Jeter, Dye, Ortiz and Mauer, on my ballot, if I had one)

Howard as NL MVP(not a terrible selection, but I think Pujols is the pretty clear-cut MVP, and Stark cites his intentional walk totals as evidence to the contrary)

Ryan Zimmerman as NL Roty(instead of Ramirez or Uggla, on the basis that "there's just something special about him that's hard to define")

I'm not usually as critical of ESPN's baseball coverage as most, but this is...blurg.

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Jeter?

How is he MVP? Someone please enlighten me on how he could be. He hit for a good AVG and plays an ok SS.

by cjbray on Sep 30, 2006 6:53 PM CDT reply actions

Jeter

He does lead the AL in win shares.

by BurntOrange on Sep 30, 2006 7:11 PM CDT up reply actions

WARP for selected players:

Santana -- 10.7

Mauer -- 9.0

Jeter -- 8.9
Dye -- 8.6
Tejada -- 8.5
Halladay -- 8.4
Sizemore -- 8.4
M Young -- 8.2

Ortiz -- 7.9
Hafner -- 7.8
Liriano -- 7.2
Wang -- 7.1
Morneau -- 7.0

by Lucas on Sep 30, 2006 7:49 PM CDT up reply actions

Stark...

...was the goof who championed Shannon Stewart as MVP in 2003. Stewart might've been the 20th best player in the league that season. Probably not even that.

by Lucas on Sep 30, 2006 7:00 PM CDT reply actions

Stark for

Most Space Wasting Columnist

by t ball on Sep 30, 2006 7:47 PM CDT reply actions

the best part

is the top 10 injuries at the end of the column...

by knockoutking24 on Oct 2, 2006 3:10 AM CDT reply actions

re: zimmerman

the guy hit .288 w/ 20 hr and 110 rbi AND played gold glove defense. (only the 3rd NL rookie over the last 50 yrs w/ 100+ rbi along w/ pujols and piazza)

AVG OBP SLG OPS
uggla: .280 .337 .474 .811
zimmerman: .288 .352 .472 .824
ramirez: .294 .354 .483 .837

so when it comes to that its ramirez then zimmerman...

HR 2b RBI
zimmerman: 20 47 110
ramirez: 17 46 59
uggla: 26 26 89

so still fairly close until you see that zimmerman almost doubled the RBI output of hanley

so it goes to defense...and 9 or 10 out of 10 baseball guys would say zimmerman is the best

and yes, zimmerman DOES have "something" about him.

i see no prob in picking zimmerman over ramirez and uggla

by knockoutking24 on Oct 2, 2006 3:28 AM CDT up reply actions

Well

Zimmerman was a middle-of-the-order hitter, Ramirez was a leadoff man. That negates the RBI difference. And you neglected the speed aspect: 51 SB vs. 15 CS for Ramirez, 11 SB vs. 8 CS for Zimmerman.

I'd go with Ramirez.

by a bebop a rebop on Oct 2, 2006 7:48 AM CDT up reply actions

re:

RBI is pretty worthless in this case. Ramirez was leading off, hit in a tougher park, and in a much worse lineup.

Despite all of the above, Ramirez had the better OBP, SLG, and OPS(and, given park factors, will have a significant lead in OPS+). He also provided 40 more stolen bases, and played a more critical defensive position. Even if you were to say that Zimmerman was among the best two or three defensive third basemen in the NL(despite his reputation in college, you'd have a tough time proving that), Ramirez still provided more defensive value.

by Alan Smithee on Oct 2, 2006 1:31 PM CDT up reply actions