Brandon Crawford finished fourth in the voting, behind winner Bryce Harper and runners-up Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis, Jr. I thought you might like to see the voting breakdown:
Crawford was named on all 30 ballots. Andrew Baggarly (on The Athletic) wrote a piece breaking down his vote. He put BCraw #1 and is responsible for the lone vote for LaMonte Wade, Jr.*
If you enjoy debating the merits of the MVP this was a good year in the National League. There were a lot of deserving players. I think we'd all agree that BCraw was the MVP of the Giants. (And the Giants were the best team!) I'm glad he was named by all the writers, I think that says a lot about his impact. I don't really care so much who wins as it is too hard to separate individuals and teams and too hard to define "value" in the context of an entire season. I think Baggs was making a point: context matters. You don't just pick the guy with the best stats, you pick the guy who (in your view) made the biggest difference for his team. He also felt BCraw's fielding was under-valued, and I can't argue with that. And I can't argue with his ballot:
Shohei Ohtani was such an obvious choice in the AL and he won unanimously. Only the NL decision provided any barstool-argument fodder.
Congratulations to Brandon Crawford on an outstanding season!
--M.C.
*p.s. FanGraphs has a stat called WPA (win probability added) and Wade finished 11th in MLB and 6th in the NL. That was with only 381 PA. He sure got a lot of clutch hits!!
3 comments:
seems how the writers as a group vote is somewhat depends on the current group think. Some years no matter how great a players stats are, if he is not on a winning team, he does not have a chance. Other times it seems not to matter. It is difficult to make the case that Crawford is not the MVP. It is not just offense, but defense. Harper did finish very strong, and had the stats, but it was clear that even before he had his hot 2 month finish, that he was being promoted as the N.L. MVP. Clearly Walks matter. Even though I am a hard core giants fan, and look negatively at anything Dodger, I thought that Buhler should have been the Cy Young. He had a slight down turn his last few games, but he had tossed a bunch more quality starts than anyone else. The first half Cy Young was Gausman, but he faded just a bit too much to come in the top 3. If Desclafani did not have to pitch against the dodgers, he could have made a strong case. The dodgers just seemed to have his number.
I liked Wheeler for CYA but Buehler would have been a deserving choice, too.
Keep an eye out for news about Seiya Suzuki who is supposed to be posted today or tomorrow.
RH power bat from Japan. 26 years old. Could be a perfect fit in SF!
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