A little project I'm thinking of doing (HGM's Historical MVP/Cy Young Choices)

[HoustonGM]

2001:

AL MVP: Jason Giambi
NL MVP: Barry Bonds
AL Cy: Mike Mussina
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

Two disagreements, again both in the AL. I guess it's really hard for the BBWAA to screw it up when Barry Bonds is OPSing 15 thousand and Randy Johnson is striking out every batter he faces.

Ichiro Suzuki won the 2001 AL MVP, a testament more to his coming over from Japan and taking the MLB by storm than to his value. I have Bret Boone has the Most Valuable Mariner of the year, and second to Jason Giambi in the AL MVP race. Giambi had a ridiculous offensive season, and nobody in the AL was particularly close.

The AL Cy Young had some interesting names enter the discussion, such as Joe Mays and Freddy Garcia. Roger Clemens won the BBWAA award because of his pretty 20-3 record. However, he was pretty clearly behind a few pitchers in terms of actual pitching quality. Mays paced the AL in ERA+ with 145. Mussina led with a 10.6 WARP, and wasn't behind Mays by much in ERA+, with a 142 in just 5 less innings. Mussina also leads in Win Probability Added. Add that all up, and I have Mussina edging out a very tight group of contenders (Mays, Garcia, Mark Mulder, Mark Buerhle, and Clemens).

[ragecage]

I cant wait until you get to the early 90's

[HoustonGM]

2000:

AL MVP: Pedro Martinez (Originally had Jason Giambi. Below discussion was what I originally had)
NL MVP: Jeff Kent
AL Cy: Pedro Martinez
NL Cy: Randy Johnson

No disagreements here, but the AL was a REAL toughie for me. Pedro Martinez had a ridiculous season (again), and I really wanted to give him both the MVP and the Cy Young, but I saw his overall value close enough to Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Carlos Delgado that I could barely fit a hair through the difference, so I deferred to a position player. I originally had given my award to Alex Rodriguez, because he paced Giambi in WARP by nearly 3 wins...However, I looked closer, and Giambi and A-Rod both had nearly identical seasons in 2001 as they did in 2000, and in 2001, I saw Giambi as the winner. I realized that the reason A-Rod was coming out ahead of Giambi by such a large margin in 2000, but didn't in 2001, was because of the Fielding Runs stat, which saw A-Rod as a world class defender in 2000, but average in 2001. I don't like putting my full faith in one stat, especially one as shaky as Fielding Runs, so I changed my mind. It's certainly possible that A-Rod had a fluke defensive season in 2000 and was excellent. Players can have fluke seasons in the field just as they can at the plate. However, I don't know...I just didn't feel satisfied handing the award out based on that, so I reverted to Giambi, giving him back-to-back HGM MVP awards.

[dickay]

So, with no school, I've been pretty bored lately. I was thinking of, for no other reason than boredom, going through year-by-year and picking my picks for AL and NL MVP and Cy Young awards and assembling it into a spreadsheet to compare my choices to the BBWAA choices. I'd start in 2008 and work backwards. I'm probably going to do this regardless, but I was just wondering if anybody was interested in following along as I work through this or whatever.

you have waaayyy too much time on your hands.

[Alloutwar]

Hey - baseball is a great hobby. HGM is obviously very much into the sport, stats, sabermetrics...sounds like a great thing to do with your time. It beats just playing a shooter video game, or doing drugs, or just watching the tube. Give him credit for findnig an interesting and constructive use of his free time.

Personally I would play a video game, or read a classic, or write/play music - but those are my hobbies, and everyone has different ones. If I had spent my formative years actually using my brain instead of just watching Gilligan's Island - well, I might be even smarter and better off than I am now. So hats off to your love of all things baseball, and your choice of endeavor.

[dickay]

Hey - baseball is a great hobby. HGM is obviously very much into the sport, stats, sabermetrics...sounds like a great thing to do with your time. It beats just playing a shooter video game, or doing drugs, or just watching the tube. Give him credit for findnig an interesting and constructive use of his free time.

Personally I would play a video game, or read a classic, or write/play music - but those are my hobbies, and everyone has different ones. If I had spent my formative years actually using my brain instead of just watching Gilligan's Island - well, I might be even smarter and better off than I am now. So hats off to your love of all things baseball, and your choice of endeavor.

Oh i'm not knocking him although i could have ellaborated a bit more. Its great he's that dedicated to the research.

I will say this though for Houston and everyone else. I too was a sports junkie throughout highschool and into my early 20's. It consumed me, I was very much into stats and the like and even today as I am now 30 I still watch a great deal of sports and am the first pick when choosing teams for trivial pursuit.

However......from my experience I strongly recommend you find something productive to take up at least some of that time, and by productive I guess this is the best way to put it. Playing 'trival pursuit' last new years eve with some close friend, one of the girls said to me "its amazing how much useless information is in your brain" after I nailed some tough old sports trivia questions. It made me realize she was RIGHT! The information is quite useless to me now as a 30 year old with a kid (and another on the way, just found out a couple days ago!!).

You can't get the time digesting useless information back. Its fun as a 'hobby' but let it be just that. Don't let it consume you. If you realistically have a shot and are pursuing something in sports entertainment, commentary, etc....than I can see how this is a great way to spend your time. If not....I do think you should ask the point, and if you too will wish you had the time back 12 years from now.

[BINGLEBOP]

The AL Cy Young had some interesting names enter the discussion, such as Joe Mays and Freddy Garcia. Roger Clemens won the BBWAA award because of his pretty 20-3 record. However, he was pretty clearly behind a few pitchers in terms of actual pitching quality. Mays paced the AL in ERA+ with 145. Mussina led with a 10.6 WARP, and wasn't behind Mays by much in ERA+, with a 142 in just 5 less innings. Mussina also leads in Win Probability Added. Add that all up, and I have Mussina edging out a very tight group of contenders (Mays, Garcia, Mark Mulder, Mark Buerhle, and Clemens).

Ah, the incomparable Joe Mays. He was never the same.

[HoustonGM]

I'll just say this - information and knowledge is never "useless" in my opinion.

[dickay]

I'll just say this - information and knowledge is never "useless" in my opinion.

well, one of the many questions I answered that led to the comment "its amazing how much useless information you have in your brain" was, "Who was in the 1998-99 NBA championship series. I was pretty confident and right about the Spurs beating the Knicks. I can't tell you how useless that information is in my life (other than trival pursuit i guess?)

Anyhow....i was just giving a personal experience story. Merry Xmas.

[actionjackson]

Merry Xmas and congrats on the second child on the way dickay. As to your point re: certain pursuits being more "useful" than others, that's a judgment call and your entitled to it. From where I sit though baseball is more than a pursuit or a hobby for Houston. It's a passion and one which he is very capable of not only articulating very well, but researching very well. From his posts on other subjects it would appear that he's very well rounded (and grounded) at a very young age. I recall in my teens and early to mid twenties thinking my baseball nerdiness was not "cool" and drifting away from it, but if something's in your blood you will either drift back into it or ignore a large part of yourself. Some people are passionate about sailing or cars or religion or music or math or literature. Houston is passionate about baseball and music (and probably other things) from what I can tell. His passions are not harming him or anyone else as far as I know. I'd be far more worried about him if he didn't have any passions, but that doesn't seem to be an issue.

I remember a great biology teacher I had in grade 9, who it was obvious had a passion for science. Early on in the year he opined about why it was that so many of his students couldn't retain or recall information for tests and exams, but at the drop of a hit could recite the stats of their favourite athletes in their favourite sports. He said it was because they had a passion for these sports and that in order to succeed academically students had to develop this same passion for their studies.

Perhaps the reason you are such a good trivial pursuit player is because you have a passion for sports which enables you to easily recall "trivial" facts from yesteryear without much effort. This whole categorizing of pursuits and hobbies on a spectrum of useful to useless is poppycock. The only determining factor when it comes to deciding your hobbies and pursuits should be how much you love them, or how much they resonate with you and you with them, not how useful they are or what higher purpose they serve. Please don't take this the wrong way, but why are you letting someone else separate the useful hobbies and pursuits from the useless ones for you? Why not follow these interests and share them with your kids?

[HoustonGM]

No disagreements here, but the AL was a REAL toughie for me. Pedro Martinez had a ridiculous season (again), and I really wanted to give him both the MVP and the Cy Young, but I saw his overall value close enough to Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Carlos Delgado that I could barely fit a hair through the difference, so I deferred to a position player.

I've been thinking about this one some more, and I think I may yet change my mind...again. I'm going to look deeper into it later on when I'm home, but what's really unsettling to me is that Pedro in 1999 was jobbed of the MVP award in real life (received more first place votes than any other player, but was left COMPLETELY off a couple ballots), and at first glance, I'd give it to him in 1999, and he was even BETTER in 2000. While it's certainly possible that the 1999 AL doesn't have any position players on par with A-Rod/Delgado/Giambi, I don't think that's that case. So, I just find it a bit unsettling to award the 1999 MVP to Pedro while not giving it to him in 2000 as well. A 1.74 ERA in a year where the park-adjusted league ERA is around 5.00 is just mindboggling. I very well may change my 2000 choice (again) from Giambi to Pedro.

[dickay]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but why are you letting someone else separate the useful hobbies and pursuits from the useless ones for you? Why not follow these interests and share them with your kids?

I suppose I didn't articulate it very well. I"m not allowing anyone to dictate how I spend my time, pursuits of hobbies. I spend way too much time on this site as well as others lol. I look back at all the time I spent years ago, and just see alot of it as wasted that will never be given back. In moderation, its fine....i just went overboard and wish I had used some of that time more productively. Of course it's different for everyone.....I'm just explaining how I see things personally in my life. And it wasn't someone who dictated that to me...but it was someone who pointed it out which caused the realization that I'd rather have my head filled with more of what I consider 'useful' and current information than the stats and sports trivia I used to endulge in.

[dickay]

I've been thinking about this one some more, and I think I may yet change my mind...again. I'm going to look deeper into it later on when I'm home, but what's really unsettling to me is that Pedro in 1999 was jobbed of the MVP award in real life (received more first place votes than any other player, but was left COMPLETELY off a couple ballots), and at first glance, I'd give it to him in 1999, and he was even BETTER in 2000. While it's certainly possible that the 1999 AL doesn't have any position players on par with A-Rod/Delgado/Giambi, I don't think that's that case. So, I just find it a bit unsettling to award the 1999 MVP to Pedro while not giving it to him in 2000 as well. A 1.74 ERA in a year where the park-adjusted league ERA is around 5.00 is just mindboggling. I very well may change my 2000 choice (again) from Giambi to Pedro.

IMHO....Pedro was the MVP.

[metsguy234]

And HGM... you really, really love Pedro, don't you?

[HoustonGM]

And HGM... you really, really love Pedro, don't you?

No. I just don't have an irrational hatred of him that blinds me from accurately evaluating his value.

Please look at Pedro Martinez's full career one day. It may be a surprise to you, but he played for some other teams before joining the Mets, and while on those other teams, he rattled off a string of seasons that are really the most dominant peak seasons the game has ever seen from a pitcher.