“Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.”

Since a baseball team’s goal is to win games, “the value of a player to his team” is shown most significantly by how much he contributes to accomplishing that goal. Therefore, among two MVP candidates, everything else being equal (i.e. each has a similar supporting cast), the one who leads his team to the playoffs by definition is more valuable than one who does not.

Look at how many game changing plays outside of hitting that Mike Trout had vs. the rest of the potential candidates. It’s not even a contest, the guy clearly carried his team since he was called up
from the minors.

Trout’s fielding, throwing, base running has the same impact as his bat IF not more so. This kid is the future of baseball and he didn’t even play a full year.

To me, it’s not even a contest who should win the MVP.

The weightings used are quite subjective

No they aren’t. Defensive ones are, but as there are other components that aren’t, for instance batting runs are based on linear weights, subjective.

Tu ere MVP, Miguel. Si!

The curious thing that I find about WAR is that I just read that FanGraphs’ WAR stats show Rick Porcello as having a higher value than Jered Weaver. (2.9 to 2.7). Would anyone in the pro-WAR crowd choose Porcello over Weaver in a one game playoff match-up or use that to determine who has more value to their team?

There’s a reason for it. fWAR for pitchers is based on FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was essentially uses peripherals (Ks, BBs and HR) instead of Runs Allowed (RA/9) that Baseball-Reference war (rWAR) uses. In this, Weaver has the better peripherals than Porcello. However, fWAR normalizes BABIP for all pitchers, which helps Porcello (.347 BABIP) and hurts Weaver (.237). There are certain types of pitchers that have been shown to have lower than normal BABIP (Rivera, Weaver and Cain are a couple, knuckleballers as well) so they are dinged a bit on fWAR. Here’s the matchup using rWAR:

Weaver – 3.4
Porcello – 1.5

It’s not that Ave. / HR / RBI are worthless. The point is that whatever you are trying to measure (batting proficiency, hitting especially well in situations when it produces runs, etc.), there are much better statistics available today. If one wants to take the time to be analytical about it anyway.

Not all Tiger fans are acting outraged at MVP voters, including many who leave comments on this website.

You must have made a typo, because that sentence completely contradicts everything else you’re saying.

All it says is, “a team making the playoffs” does not have to be relevant to whether someone is eligible for MVP. It might be relevant; it might not be. It’s deliberately open-ended. So you can’t then say, it MUST be relevant, because that is simply not supported by the voting instructions.

That’s got to be awkward when you show up in a suit and everybody else is in a t shirt and shorts.

MVP’s are for the more valuable player in the league

Not sure how much clearer it needs to be said

…oh, you’re being serious? Avg w/RISP? Past years where he “could’ve won?”

Stop it.

I think baseball did at one point offer a solution: The Henry Aaron award should go to the hitter, Cy Young to the pitcher, and MVP to the better of the two.

Thing is, nobody ever cared about the Henry Aaron.

MVP is on it’s own and included everyone