I think it’s very worthwhile to debate who should get it. Reducing it to stats is what I find problematic. I find it disappointing that no one wants to debate the intangibles too.

Soooo, the writing Selig thing was sarcasm based on a post earlier by someone who thinks “baseball” should fire the voters. Sorry, I should’ve explained my joke there (but I assumed you’d read the post, since you commented on it like I did, and would get it).

Also, thanks for assuming I needed a link to the voting criteria. As I had quoted it before, I clearly hadn’t read it. (sarcasm again)

Obviously, voters look at statistics in making their assumptions but which ones and how much weight they give them is up to the individual voter. There’s no formula for that. The outcome is not tabulated — it’s voted on. If a voter thinks leadership or scrappiness matters as much or more than stolen bases or rbi’s, they can vote based on that. That’s how it goes.

While you chew on that, consider this as well: Of all the triple crowns, assuming Cabrera pulls it off, how many did not also lead their league in WAR? Cabrera would be the first.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/08/29/here-are-the-mvp-voting-criteria/

Are there judgment calls involved in applying the criteria? Sure. But it’s not totally subjective. This is NOT like debating whether rap is better than rock, or chocolate is better than vanilla. If YOU don’t like THAT, YOU should write to the BBWAA (NOT to Selig, who has no control over the criteria), and tell them to erase the criteria and tell the voters to “vote for whoever you want, for whatever reasons you want”.

But yet, Cabrera gets credit in WAR for getting that hit, thereby giving his teammates a chance to move him around.

And he doesn’t get credit in WAR for the base he didn’t steal, which would’ve allowed him to score on that single.

Yes, not all hits, steals, walks, etc. result in runs, and not all home runs result in the same number of runs. And the reason they vary in the number of runs they lead to is *things totally out of an individual player’s control*. That’s why stats like WAR (and for that matter, traditional stats like BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, HR, doubles, triples, and SB) only give a player credit for the things he can control. When you’re giving an award to an individual player, it seems sensible to only give him credit for things he could control. Otherwise, you’re basically making it a team award.

Or are you saying that any time we give an award to just one guy, we’re *necessarily* discounting every other good player? Are you saying we should give an award to everybody who had a good year? (and if we did, wouldn’t that be discounting all the guys who only had pretty good years?)