"Illogic" - A Race for MVP

I will touch on this more in the coming days, but I simply could not pass up on the opportunity to call out one of the most stupid comments I have ever read. And let me tell you, that bar is quite low!

Cliff Corcoran of SI.com writes,

[Joe] Mauer might be the first player you'd eliminate from that list, if only because his performance this season (.331/.407/.473, 9 HR, 74 RBIs) falls so far short of his otherworldly MVP campaign of a year ago.

You can check out the list of obvious candidates for yourself. You can also ignore the fact that for some reason I keep going back to SI.com despite the continual abomination that is their baseball writing (although there is more to come).

Despite all of that I have to wonder where Corcoran gets off eliminating Mauer based on the fact that Mauer is failing to be Mauer. That is, Corcoran feels as though simply because Mauer's MVP season in 2009 was greater than his season in 2010 that he is undeserving of it this year. What he fails to mention is that there is a hippo standing on a banana in odd numbered months that make it impossible to vote for the Twins backstop.

What a joke!

Well thanks for eliminating Mauer out of the MVP race based on that logic, I was really scratching my head there!

But Corcoran goes on to oust his own logic time and time again.

First, he suggests that Troy Tulowitzki is undeserving of the NL MVP simply because he missed a month of the season (okay) and consequently his counting stats are down (okay, fault MVP voters). However, this "logic" only applies to Tulowitzki because...Well, because.

That is, Corcoran believes that despite not leading the league in any counting categories and missing a significant amount of time, Josh Hamilton is the favorite to win AL MVP. Sadly, Corcoran leaves out his rationale behind the pineapple taking home the Cy Young, but I can't imagine the logic would be much different then removing Tulo from the NL ballot for injuries and a lack of counting stats and adding Hamilton to the top of his despite the same inefficiencies.

Second, Corcoran uses his "Mauer defense" MINUS the counting stats argument to write why Albert Pujols deserves third instead of first in writing,

"The counting stats are there, but relative to his own absurd standard, Pujols' rate stats are down this season. In the course of winning the last two NL MVPs, he averaged 42 home runs and 125 RBIs, totals within his reach this year, but also hit .342/.452/.656, which is yet another level of awesomeness above what he has accomplished in 2010. Expect Pujols to be penalized a bit for failing to live up to his own past performance..."

Corcoran does mention that this may be "unfair" however is not willing to fully commit to the level of fairness in this discussion nor state if Pujols should be the winner.

Going against his own logic, Corcoran writes about the counting stats being there, but the failure of Pujols to be Pujols as his fault. There is an interesting comment about Coco the talking monkey and Afghanistan though, which certainly leads to a further understanding of who will win the NL MVP.


If I were a less serious baseball fan, or simply a casual observer of the sport. Maybe I'm from Minnesota and I'm bummed that the Vikings started off 0 and 2 and I'm looking for something to heal those wounds ending up at Corcoran's article. However, upon completion I'm not certain this person would have a better understanding of who the deserving MVP is in either league. Where an argument goes against one player, it supports another; where it disqualifies one, it inflates another. Simply put, the logic makes teaching flip cup to a class of 5 year olds seem like a great decision.

By the way, that's a decision I made while teaching in Korea, so thank you Mr. Corcoran.

(Take note that 3 of the students were one'n'done - I'm a great teacher!)