Consider Texas Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez. By several rational measures, (see the August 20 post here), he has been the most productive player in the American League over the past seven years. Can you guess how many Most Valuable Player awards he has won during that time span?

The answer is zero.

Many baseball fans consider A-Rod to be the best player in the American League today, and for good reason. He leads the AL in home runs (40), ranks second in OPS (1010), and among the league's elite offensive forces, he is the only one to play a crucial middle infield position, a position at which he won a Gold Glove last year. Can you guess A-Rod's chances of winning the MVP award this year?

Again, the answer is zero.

How is it possible that the best player in the league has no chance to be named its Most Valuable Player? "Simple," you are saying. "A-Rod's team is 64-75. The Rangers are in last place, 19.5 games out of first, and have no chance to make the playoffs. Great players are supposed to carry their teams. If A-Rod is so valuable, why can't he carry the Rangers to the playoffs, or at least to 81 wins?"

A-Rod can't carry his team to the playoffs because he is not a football player, or a hockey player, or a basketball player. A-Rod plays baseball, a game in which great individual players can do less to help their teams win than in any other major American sport. A-Rod can't march his team 95 yards to score a game-winning touchdown. He can't take extra shifts on the ice. He can't demand the basketball during crunch time. All Alex Rodriguez can do is go to the plate one out of nine times and handle the balls that come his way in the field, and he does these things better than any other player in the American League.

Look at it this way: why are the Rangers a bad team? They don't have a problem hitting -- as measured in runs scored, the Rangers have the fourth most potent offense in the AL. But the Rangers' pitching staff sports a 5.70 ERA, the worst in the majors. What, exactly, is A-Rod supposed to do about this? Take the mound every fifth day? Become the first player to hit 50 home runs and record 50 saves? Sacrifice a virgin in the light of a full moon?

Those of you with long memories will recall that we went over all of this last year, when A-Rod lost the MVP to Oakland's Miguel Tejada, a very good shortstop who nevertheless had inferior offensive stats to A-Rod, including 23 fewer home runs and an OPS 154 points lower. Tejada won the MVP mostly on the strength of a few clutch hits during the A's late-season 20-game winning streak that clinched the AL West division. "He played better when it counted," the analysts noted. Note to everyone in the universe: It always counts. A victory in April counts the same as a victory in September. If A-Rod had played for the A's all year, maybe they wouldn't have needed a miraculous winning streak to make the playoffs.

Look, you guys, this is really simple. The MVP is an individual award, not a team award. Alex Rodriguez does more to help his team win than any other player in the American League and is therefore the most valuable. He shouldn't lose the MVP because the Rangers can't pitch.

+posted by Lawrence @ 9/03/2003 10:51:00 PM