Mike Trout should have won 5 straight MVP's, so this feels like a get it while you can MVP. It will suck if he doesn't win it, but this is as tight a race as it can get.
Except this won't be voters completely changing all historical voting trends over 2 freaking rebounds. There is precedent for giving Judge the award. In a way, picking a guy whose runs/rbi/HR totals are so much lower would be breaking historical precedent.
I hope Altuve wins and think he should, but beyond my own team favoritism, I appreciate that he has done it 2 years running.
I still feel like Altuve will win it. The media had decided Westbrook was getting MVP long before the award came out. ESPN essentially became his personal lobbying team. I don’t get that vibe with this award.
Anyone who knows basketball knows "2 freaking rebounds" is a sizeable amount of rebounds. Said difference can categorize a player as great-good, good-average, and so on. Saying two rebounds also downplays 10+ assists were achieved too. Also a higher PER and better +/-. I wished Westbrook lost regardless.... just saying, it's nowhere near ludicrous at all he won. ____ Saying "COMPLETELY changing all voting trends" is misguided and outright wrong too. Thunder weren't below 500 and missing the playoffs. THAT would equate "completely" changing trends IMO.
Sportsbooks have Altuve at 1-15 odds to win it, which is as much of a lock as you can get in their opinion.
Yep. This idea that Aaron Judge isn't as worthy... he's had a helluva season. If they pick him, it won't be "wrong." His case is rock solid.
Though their pitching has certainly surprised this year (even with Betances/Chapman/Tanaka having disappointing years), but they wouldn't be here today if Judge hadn't lit the world on fire. Greg Bird missed most of the season. Sanchez missed a month. The offense needed a star to fill that gap and he did.
We're running into all the same arguments here as we had in the Harden Curry WB debates. No. The MVP in both leagues is a cumulative award for most work done to get your team to where it needed to be, usually at a very high level of performance. If Trout or Lebron took time off, understandably, because of injuries, then that definitely plays into the equation. This has happened more often in basketball than baseball. I was okay for them to pull this **** on us with Curry vs Harden even if Harden had done more work, because 67 wins was much harder to achieve than 56 even if Harden had no Dwight for half the season in 2015. Ok. Time to call bullshit double standard on this one. This is the exact reciprocal of the "best player best team" argument. If the media wants to say that season-long triple double captured the hearts and souls of the public last year in basketball, whatever, fine. Just don't ignore the fact that this is just another in a long line of abject screw-jobs that Houston players have received at their hands. Houston lives matter too! If you want to apply 2015 Warriors rules to this year's MLB argument, then you will say that 101 wins is much more impressive and difficult to achieve than 91. Altuve has been plowing the most dirt, day in day out, for an Astros team that was best in the league almost the entire year. You can throw any of the arguments above around as you want, just understand that you are doing it purely for the sakes of your pre-existing biases. I trust the baseball writers to be less swayed by this cognitive bias, and to do Houston right this year in 2017.
How the hell did Altuve go from having a relatively large lead in WAR on ESPN's stat page to being behind 8.8 to 7.9 within the last two days of the season?! Fake news? #mediaconspiracy
Damn... just noticed that. There's zero chance Jose wins. Altuve MVP Watch ---- Watch Altuve's MVP go to Judge.
baseball purists will vote altuve, those who are enamored with the longball will vote Judge. It depends what your taste is, a short underdog story on pace to be one the greatest to ever live or some comic book villain looking fellow who expects to get his in his first year. Who does he think he is,ichiro? Ichiro spent almost 9 seasons in Japan. You got to suffer a little. Judge can win it next year. No bias here.
Judge has a .422 OB% & leads the AL in walks & is 3rd in total bases. Anyone who thinks he's merely a power hitter has no idea what they're talking about.
read my no bias line. it will be a close call. I don't expect people that never liked altuve to begin with to change. He has every chance to get the mvp, so it's up to the taste of the voter.
This apprehension isn't about Judge as a player; I think @Hey Now! has made a compelling case for him. When combined with the power of the New York media market, Judge could very well win this thing. The apprehension is this recent run of MVP runner-ups in Houston: Harden (x2) and Watt both had legitimate cases to their MVP awards, but didn't end up winning. If you're posting on this BBS, you probably will feel aggrieved if Altuve doesn't win because it'll be our fourth straight close-but-no-cigar shot at having the city's first MVP since 1994.
