Most Valuable Pitcher? by Jared Carrabis
Debating whether or not a pitcher should be considered for the Most Valuable Player Award


As I'm trapped in my house thanks to Hurricane Irene, I've been scouring the internet for baseball news, and whether or not a pitcher should win the MVP Award has been a popular debate.

The reason for the debate, of course, has risen due to the fact that the Detroit Tigers' Justin Verlander is a no-brainer for the Cy Young Award. At 20-5, he's been so good and so valuable to his team that some are considering the right-hander for the American League MVP Award. This raises many questions, with the most important being, Does any pitcher, not just Verlander, deserve to win the MVP Award?

Well, in history more pitchers have won the MVP Award than you'd probably guess. A grand total of 23 hurlers have taken home the MVP hardware, and two have actually won multiple MVP Awards (Carl Hubbell and Hal Newhouser).

The reason why the concept of a pitcher winning the MVP Award has become so far-fetched is because we haven't had one since Dennis Eckersley won the award with the Oakland A's in 1992. The more seasons that go by where a pitcher doesn't win the award, the higher the bar is raised for pitchers to become the next member of this exclusive club.

As good as Eckersley was in 1992, he should not have the honor of being the last pitcher to win an MVP award. That honor should belong to Pedro Martinez, who was robbed in 1999. In one of the best seasons by a pitcher ever, Martinez went 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts in 213.1 innings to secure the pitching Triple Crown.

Martinez was a unanimous decision for the American League Cy Young Award, but Red Sox fans were shocked when the most dominant pitcher didn't take home the MVP award, and enraged when they found out why.

Pedro had received the most first place votes for the AL MVP in 1999, getting eight of a a possible 28, but two sportswriters (George King of the New York Post and LaVelle Neal of the Star Tribune) left Martinez completely off their ballots, costing him the MVP award.

King had given MVP votes to not one, but two pitchers in 1998, so any argument that he didn't feel pitchers deserved the award was invalid and hypocritical. There was no logical explanation that the New York writer could have given to justify his actions, yet Martinez suffers because of some hack writing for the Post.

Martinez would have become the first Red Sox pitcher since Roger Clemens in 1986 to win both the Cy Young and the MVP award in the same season, which he absolutely should have.

In this piece from 2000 depicting writers' opinions on the MVP voting criteria, Buster Olney, then with the New York Times, described the fallout after Martinez didn't win the MVP, "It really made (writers) all look very dumb."

Now the argument that writers will use when saying that a pitcher shouldn't win the MVP award is usually that they only play every fifth day, and that position players are going out there for over 140 games if they're MVP-worthy.

That's fair, but what if you broke it down a little further? For argument's sake, let's use Adrian Gonzalez, who is regarded as an American League MVP candidate. In his inaugural season with the Red Sox, Gonzalez has played in 131 of Boston's 133 games to this point, appearing at the plate 596 times this year.

Gonzalez's 131 games played are far and beyond the 29 starts that Justin Verlander has made this season. But Gonzalez's 596 plate appearances are essentially 596 times that Boston's first baseman has battled against an opposing hitter. In Verlander's 29 starts, the right-hander has faced 830 batters, which means that he has had considerably more battles against hitters that Gonzalez has had against pitchers.

For his career, Gonzalez has averaged 692 plate appearances over a full 162-game season. Verlander averages 931 batters faced for his career over a 162-game saeson. Even Gonzalez's career high in plate appearances of 720 in 2007 would still be lower than Verlander's career low in batters faced, which was 776 in his rookie season of 2006. It's also worth noting that the Red Sox record for plate appearances in a season is 758, held by Wade Boggs in 1985.

To put it plainly, 100 times out of 100, the best pitcher in the league will face more batters than the best hitter in the league will face pitchers.

Sure, there's more value in a player who is on the field and in the lineup every single day, helping you win, but the point is that dismissing a starting pitcher from the discussion because they only pitch every fifth day is insulting to the game of baseball.

Hardball Talk has this post in which Tigers manager Jim Leyland says, "I don't think a pitcher should be the Most Valuable Player. I’m not looking for arguments or controversy I just think when a guy goes out there 158 times or 155 times and has a big year, an MVP type year I don't think the guy that goes out there 35 times should be named over that guy."

Coincidentally, the same post claims that Buster Olney has been the most vocal baseball writer that is campaigning for Verlander to win the MVP award. It seems as though his opinion on pitchers winning the MVP hasn't changed in the last decade.

Me personally, I think that September is the most important month of the season when it comes to the MVP award, so it would be foolish to say whether or not I think Verlander deserves it. Does he deserve to be in the top five? Absolutely. But ultimately, whether or not he finishes in the top three, or even wins the award, depends on what other players, and even other teams do down the stretch.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed, a majority of my motivation to write this post was to complain about Pedro Martinez getting screwed in 1999. George King sucks.

Follow @Jared_Carrabis


Published on August 28, 2011

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