Tuesday, August 26, 2008

3 Guys And A Sports Page

I'm not sure how many people out there have heard of the website, 3 Guys And A Sports Page. I honestly don't know what kind of popularity it has. It looks like it's been up and running for at least a year now? I don't know.

Anyways, apparently they write some pretty crazy shit.

Is Carlos Delgado an MVP Candidate?

That's the headline. Like I said, crazy shit. The author's name is Daniel Marino. I'm looking into whether or not he spent any time as a quarterback in the Miami Dolphins organization. So far my search yields no results.

In May, if you had told me that Carlos Delgado would be mentioned as a possible MVP candidate, I’d have laughed at you.

Today, if you told me that Carlos Delgado would be mentioned as a possible MVP candidate, I would laugh at you.

On June 1st, he was hitting below .230 and looked lost at the plate. But I stand (or sit) here today, writing it myself: Carlos Delgado has become a legitimate NL MVP candidate.

I laugh at you.

Plain and simply put: there’s no way the Mets would be in first place without Carlos Delgado.

You could also make an argument that they would not be in first place without Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, or Johan Santana (among others).

Nope... Carlos Delgado > All the above players.

Delgado now has 90 RBI. That’s only 9 RBI behind team leader David Wright (who has been mentioned in MVP discussion).

Wright also leads him in OBP, SLG, OPS+, SB, VORP, EQA, WARP, and almost any other valuable statistic ever made, by a pretty large margin.

His 90 RBI are better than Pujols, Utley, Holliday, Braun, Burrell, and Fielder.

This is awesome. I'm so glad Peter Gammons did not write this. So Delgado is the MVP because he has some of the best players in the league getting on base in front of him. Gotcha.

It’s no coincidence that since Delgado started hitting with authority in July, the Mets started winning games (31-17 since July 1st).

Teams often tend to perform better when their players start to perform better. Especially when that player had a .726 OPS(!) up to that point. It also probably helps that Santana, Perez, and Pelfrey have a combined ERA under 2.50 during that time. Maybe? There's also that guy that plays short. He's not too bad.

There are many worthy of consideration, but perhaps no one has been more valuable to his team during the last two months than Carlos Delgado has been to the Mets.

Since July 1st, Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday each have an OPS at least 75 points better than Delgado. They also lead by quite a bit in RC and RC/27. Those may not be the best stats in the world, but it would seem rather obvious that Delgado has not been the most valuable even over the last two months (although he's been very good). Also, keep in mind that these players, along with many others, have put up very good numbers throughout the entire season, and not just the last two months.

Albert Pujols is always in the MVP discussion, but the Cardinals are in 3rd place in the NL Central and it will be difficult for them to overtake the Brewers or Cubs. Pujols is also losing consideration to teammate Ryan Ludwick who is also having a monster season.

First of all, how a player's team performs should in no way reflect the value of that player. If the Cardinals were in the NL West, they'd probably have already ran away with the division by now and Pujols would be at the top of everyone's list. Does that really sound fair? Team success does not equal or reflect that of individual value.

Secondly, do not compare Ludwick's season to that of Pujols. This goes for all voters, writers, thinkers, human beings, etc. Pujols currently leads him in like 50 different categories. He is the best player in baseball. Please stop trying to prevent him from winning awards and please stop trying to conform people to your crazy way of thinking.

Ryan Braun is perhaps the most legitimate MVP candidate at the moment. I dare say that Braun and Delgado are 1-2 respectively in my MVP voting if the season ended today.

Holy.Shit.

I don't know who you are, Daniel Marino (still not sure if you played football), but if you had an MVP vote I would lose all faith in the integrity of the award. If there were seriously voters out there who would have Ryan Braun and Carlos Delgado as their FUCKING 1-2 ON THE BALLOT, then there would be no point in caring about this prestigious, 96-year old award at all.
Luckily, though, he's not a voter and the BBWAA get's it dead on every single year.

Fortunately, the season does not end today. The NL MVP Award will come down to the final week of the season. But if Delgado continues his tear (he’s even playing well on defense),

He's currently 8th in RZR and 8th in OOZ among NL first baseman. So he's pretty much average. You'd be better off not mentioning anything about a first baseman's defense unless it's damn good (like Albert Pujols). Otherwise it's pretty moot in an MVP argument.

and the Mets are able to make the playoffs, it will be difficult not to look in Delgado’s direction

I think I could resist.

David Wright has been hitting well the entire season, yet the Mets struggled early on. It wasn’t until Delgado started hitting that the Mets became serious contenders again.

What??? It took more than one player to win baseball games? Weird...

And in September, when the last regular season pitch is thrown, it may just be Carlos Delgado who is a serious contender to become the NL MVP.

Oh man. This is bad, Daniel Marino. I don't care how many passing yards you threw, there's really no excuse for this. Carlos Delgado is currently 44th in VORP among all NL players. That's not very valuable. Yes, he's been doing great lately, but you must realize that you're potentially rewarding him for playing horrible for the entire first half of the season.
There's no justifying such a decision. I think even the current (dreadful) BBWAA would be ashamed of something like this. Perhaps the Dolphins can rebound this season and you can regain some of your sanity. Until then, I very much hope to hear from you again.

Pedro for Cy Young? Maybe next time.

4 comments:

Grif said...

Marino, along with being the greatest QB to never win a championship, is also the lead writer at Supreme Sports Justice, where he goes by JusticeDanno.

I hate the idea of giving him more traffic, but his posts are EPIC! That, and we don't have any readers, anyway, so I don't have to worry.

Anonymous said...

Actually, most of my posts are pretty normal...not sure what you mean by "epic".
Don't have a problem with anyone disagreeing with my writing....hell, I knew this would be a controversial topic...but in the end, who really gives a shit what I have to say?
When you write an article, if people don't love it or hate it, you're boring. I got responses...all disagreeing of course...but that's fine. I don't think most of my stuff is "out there" as grif suggests, but hey...that's his opinion...just like what I wrote is mine. It's all good...read some of my stuff, and you'll see I'm not that off the wall. And I'm not part of the 3guysandasportspage staff, so don't rip them if you don't like my writing. They simply post my articles from time to time, and they do a great job with their site.
Take care...
Danno

Rook said...

I should say, as a disclaimer, that Jonathan C. Mitchell isn't all that bad. I don't agree with everything he says, but at least he seems to be somewhat open-minded.

And danno: it's all in good fun dude, nothing personal.

Skye said...

Well, nothing personal as long as your name isn't Jay Mariotti.