Regular Season Awards

I don't understand Matt Sussman's ballot. How could David Price be the #1 AL player of the year, but the #2 AL pitcher of the year?

Still, when one averages 39 ballots, these quirks largely become irrelevant.

I'm also on the Matt Sussman explaining his ballot bandwagon.

Matt Sussman's vote for David Price as AL-MVP is indefensible. Most of his counting stats are down from the last two years, and his tenure in Detroit was unremarkable. Yeah, yeah, Trout fell over backward trying to make one catch, but really, be serious...

What follows is almost certainly not Sussman's real rationale, but it's a rationale that parallel-universe Sussman might have had.

Sussman's ballot was a critique of the dialogue surrounding the MVP ballot. The current dialogue prefers hitters to pitchers because they're on the field more. But - but! - this is an age where even starters are relatively better at preventing runs than in the past, an age in which hitters are less effective than in the past. So, clearly, SOME pitcher somewhere should be recognized as player of the year for their exemplary efforts in ruining baseball.

Which AL pitcher? Sure, you could say Felix or Kluber for the value they added to their team, but here's where Sussman's acidic wit comes into play. The current dialogue surrounding the position player/pitcher selection is flawed because it privileges playing time over value added. To critique this, Sussman selected Price, the pitcher who threw more innings than any other major-leaguer, as the Player of the Year (the analogue for MVP). Yet the fact that Sussman didn't recognize him for Pitcher of the Year establishes this award as a truth-teller, which states that while Price did pitch more innings than anyone else, he was still less valuable in terms of actual value added to the team. In doing so, he clearly demonstrates the flaws in the existing dialogue of 'this player must be on the field to be valuable.

This sets up a parallel with Greek Drama, in which the Player of the Year rhetoric is represented by the foolish myopia of mortals, when the Deus ex Machina, the Pitcher of the Year voting, descends to speak divine truths to the people and correct them their errors. It is a parallel that is both primally compelling and totally summoned from thin air.

What you have read is Sussman's fictional rationale for his voting.

Real funny MoY ballot, Kory

So Matt Sussman and Matt Kory are the designated trolls paid to generate comments?

Who would have expected that on the whole, BBWAA voters are more progressive and inclusive than Baseball Prospectus staff voters?

Of course, only 10% of the BP voters were so narrow-minded that they willfully left a pitcher off of their ballot for Player of the Year. That means the other 90% should not be tarred by the company they keep.

But the four who invented a fictional rule which skewed the results should reflect on how indefensible it is refuse to recognize that pitcher is also baseball player.

And some years a pitcher is the best player in the league, just as the BBWAA voters decided this time.