Carlos Marmol & Frank Thomas: MVP candidates?
November 21st, 2007 by Lucas DwyerUnless you’re a Chicago Cubs fan or a die hard fantasy baseball enthusiast, most people don’t even know who Carlos Marmol is. For the record, he was/is the set up guy for Ryan Dempster in the Cubs bullpen. He actually had a great year, going 5-1 in 69.1 IP with a 1.43 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP along with 96 Ks and only 36 BBs. He even managed to throw in a save for good measure. But, a candidate for NL MVP?
Carlos Marmol had great year in relative obscurity.
Unless you live in a cave, you probably know who Frank Thomas is. However, unless you live in a cave, you’d never say that he is a MVP candidate. At least not in 2007. Thomas’ splits for the Toronto Blue Jays were 277/377/480 with 26 HRs and 95 RBIs in 531 at-bats. Probably better than most people realized, but how would that ever qualify someone for the MVP?
Ok, realistically no one called them MVP candidates and they were not. However, they each had the distinction of receiving one 10th place vote in the MVP voting from some bird brained baseball writer (likely from Chicago and Toronto, respectively) in each of their respective leagues. Obviously there’s little harm in sticking these guys on a ballot in 10th place, but when Jimmy Rollins beats out Matt Holliday by 17 points, maybe the whole process needs some rectifying.
How silly is this points system and the fact that it is pushed out to 10th place in MVP voting and a player can even get points that far down? What’s the point of voting for 2nd place, isn’t all anyone cares about who’s first? If a few more writers put Holliday into 2nd on their ballot instead of third, Holliday would have won the MVP despite having five fewer first place votes than Rollins. For the record, I think Holliday deserved the MVP over Rollins (and would argue that David Wright was really the best player in the NL this year, more on that later), but I don’t think he should have won it with 2nd place votes. Is there anything wrong with having Rollins win the award with 16 votes over Holliday’s 11?
The 2007 NL MVP, Jimmy Rollins.
One of the “comments” posted for the Jimmy Rollins NL MVP article on espn.com was the following:
“there is no stat to explain what jroll did. the last month of the season, there were a few times he hit a standard double in the gap, but when he left the box, you could just see that he was thinking triple all the way, and he never slowed down, or thought twice about it.”
First of all, there is a stat for it, they’re called triples. Second of all, if this absurd logic were true, Curtis Granderson should be the AL MVP.
Look, Rollins is a great player, had a phenomenal year and was deserving of MVP candidacy, just not the MVP. People make the absurd argument that because Rollins said the Phillies would finish first and they did, he gets bonus points. Really? I’m the biggest fan of speed there is, but we can’t throw out the MVP to a fast player who happens to hit home runs. I also despise the argument that SS is a “premier defensive position” and a player who excels there should get extra consideration.
The case for Rollins is that he did everything well, hit, run, throw, play defense, etc. Well, so did David Wright, only better. Anyone who’s watched Colorado SS Troy Tulowitzki knows who should have won the NL gold glove at short stop and it wasn’t Rollins. These people also know Wright was hands down the best defensive 3B in the NL this year. Wright had a higher batting average, much higher on base percentage (Rollins’ was the lowest of any MVP winner of all time), same number of HRs, more RBIs, fewer R and a few less SBs.
The best thing about Rollins MVP is that he’s now going to disappoint someone as a first round draft pick in next year’s fantasy draft.
