Seung, seemingly unwittingly (but really quite wittingly), is hoisted on his own petard when he says he voted for people he liked the most. The end result of his listing Ian first, Alex second and Derek third was to change the final tally to make Ian the winner, not Derek. Had Seung not voted at all, the MVP vote would have ended in a tie. In listing only the three candidates this year, I wanted to minimize the effect of popularity and/or rigging such as this. The template for the problem of allowing votes for anyone in the top three is the famous Ted Williams/Mickey Mantle showdown in the fifties. Williams and Mantle were listed 1-2 (more first place votes for Williams) on almost all the ballots. However, one Boston writer, ticked-off by Williams lack of charm, left the splendid splinter entirely off his top-ten ballot. Mantle won. While I voted for Ian first and Derek second, I would not have minded if the vote had been tied. By requiring that everyone include the three players on their ballot we at least had a result (42 points for Ian and 41 points for Derek) that reflected how brilliantly both played. In most years, either one player is an obvious enough choice or there are an array of candidates, so leaving the vote open to choosing any player makes sense.
Maybe I should have been more politic in explaining why rightfield got its own category. If I'd described "the cutting spin on the ball hit to right which can only be measured by the astute and experienced rightfielder"...rather than saying "the worst outfielders" I might have made people feel better. Just as I could wax poetic about pivoting on the double play over "if you're not as good as the shortstops you play secondbase." The more I think about this, the more I think someone else, a kinder, more concerned, better bullshitter should be running the awards part of the meeting.
I am sorry I didn't mention that Bob Holzwasser won the pennant. I believe this is the single most important number, because I attempt to give every player an even chance to win each game. With every game that a player excels he is punished by me by making the team around him worse. Also, this year, the pennant was dramatically decided on the final day when Bob stayed home and both Alex Rivera and Ian Parfrey lost two games.
Also, I agree that either Ian or Derek should have won the Havelock. I did not vote for myself. My finishing second makes me think I should have only listed Derek and Ian on the ballot.
The Marvin Cohen Award is for "Sportsmanship." To paraphrase Don, the award should go to someone who shows up every week and enjoys and appreciates playing the game. We already have "The Naranjo Award" for service to the league. Bobby Naranjo played with us for many years and was the first to arrive and last to leave. He rescued hundreds of forgotten bats, balls, gloves, shirts and caps. If anyone needed a lift, Naranjo would give you one, even if it was a state or two out of his way. The Naranjo Award was designed to be voted on only by those who had won the award. It was not given every year and has not been awarded in several years. Next year the previous winners - Bobby Naranjo, Tony Connor, Havelock Hewes, Joe Gerber, Larry Savell and Gil Schmerler - will vote on the next winner.
I voted against the World Series, which was, in its first carnation, my idea. One of the reasons for it was to create interest in October when we were losing players to geography (moving to Westchester) and touch football. Ian's proposal to play it in August or September, I thought, might create too much interest and we would have 40 players at games. Also, I foresaw some of the problems I dealt with repeating themselves. When one team doesn't have Phil Ciccone and Derek Martinez because they mysteriously take up fishing the game becomes a travesty. I built in a system of filling in that guaranteed a competitive series, if not always close games. If we come back to the league with a proposal which addresses these problems I think we could revive the World Series.
There were several issues which I did not get a chance to bring up because people were walking out. Perhaps, we should open some on-line discussions and have some cyber-votes as the season goes on.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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75-80% of all voting for anything is based on relationships and popularity; it's only that 20-25% that is based on merit/statistics/etc. Is it right? It depends on where you stand. The fact that Seung stood by his votes is refreshing, so I don't see much of an issue there. It's not like he nominated me for MVP! He voted for one of the three who were all a toss up anyway.
I don't agree with write-ins, but maybe with a wider field. You choose guys that deserve it, it has never been any other case.
What I was mostly getting at was that the OF should have been split into four spots. We know who mostly plays in each sector, why not split it? This would have solved any issue. And I do think there's a better way to describe right field.
The Naranjo Award and Cohen Award sound too similar, don't they?
One thought to further the World Series discussion, what if there were four teams with four-five core players and the rest of the league are free agents? The teams would play an entire Heckscher season with the WS in September, after which everyone becomes a free agent.
The ballots might have been well-intentioned, but by limiting who people can vote for, you don't solve the problem of the nepotistic vote. Case in point, Seung's way-too-candid-for-the-Internet description of how he voted. With my MVP ballot, I left off Alex and wrote in Zach, not because I had anything against Alex, but in protest of the ballot itself. Zach hit .430, scored 79 runs, had 111 base hits, 34 for extra bases, and played stellar OF defense. You're telling me I couldn't vote for him? I call bullshit, even if it's well-intentioned bullshit.
So instead of a solution we have a template for a new problem, and a tainted MVP vote. But--
I don't think the voting should be taken all that seriously, especially when attendance at the winter meeting is the only prerequisite for voting, and people who played all year but missed the meeting, like alex, don't get to fill in an absentee ballot. We're not electing a president here, just the season awards from an informal game of supposedly friendly competition.
Derek still hit .493/26/87 and went 14-6 on the mound. You can't vote those numbers out of the books.
As for the RF gold glove, I'd feel better if we had a LF, two CF's, and the RF glove. Or just four OF gloves. I don't know why rightfielders were singled out, and the subtext of "this is an honor, but a dubious one" is easy enough to pick out. For one thing, Glen who won it plays in left and center far more often than the other three on the ballot.
As a pitcher, I understand the importance of a good rightfielder, and I'm happy enough when Glen or Jim or Sal is out there, each of them save me a pop fly double a game... I'm just saying for the award to have fulfilled its intentions, there should have been an LF gold glove as well, with perhaps Paul Geoghan, Bill Vernick, Derek, Joe Gerber, and Glen listed.
My hope is that votes are based on performance.
It is my impression that most outfielders move around quite a bit. Now that I think about it, going back to the four best choices seems reasonable.
The Naranjo Award is for service to the league - things like creating a web site and making t-shirts. The Cohen Trophy is for playing with cooperative joy.
I like the spirit of uncooperative joy (team identity) to be the exception rather than the rule.
Again, I call on the infield as comparable. You don't have just 4 IF votes, that would be ridiculed.
Sure, OF's basically do the same thing, but there are players who usually solely play certain sectors as Ian easily pointed out. Just giving it to the 4 best OF's, to me, is like giving the IF votes just to Phil, Dave, Bob, and Ian P. Again, you wouldn't do it, right? No one would complain if one of those guys didn't win their position. But a guy like Geoghan in left or me in right, we're allowed to be screwed, because someone, at a different position, plays better than us in ours? No, not right, guys. I shouldn't be in the same category as Zach and Alex, because neither plays my position. Sounds different from that angle, doesn't it?
As for write-ins, I am only against because I think there would be some ridiculous votes. What I was trying to say was that the field needs to be just expanded. But if it does go to write-ins, I'm fine with that, too.
Clarifications:
1) Had I known that Sal was going to print my email to him and Ian (almost) verbatim, I may have censored or edited myself slightly. However, except for some minor details and contextual stuff that maybe could have used some explanation, I stand by everything that was attributed to me. In fact I'm glad Sal posted it, because it was what I was thinking.
2) So that no one can insinuate or infer anything: I like Derek. I've just had more interaction with Alex and (obviously) Ian. I have nothing absolutely nothing against Derek. In fact I like 95-99% of all the SFLOI folks (infer from that what you will).
Well, maybe I have a minor issue with the # of minutes wasted when he (and many others) request certain trades. After second guessing Havelock several times, I've given up on it. Mess with him, yes. But he has my unqualified support in setting up teams (and screwing it up a smaller fraction of the time than I, or anyone else I can think of, would).
3) MATH: Havelock is wrong. Had I NOT voted, Derek would have won. Had I voted Derek 2nd THEN it would have ended in a tie. I probably should have voted him 2nd. Maybe I would have done it had I trusted the democratic process. . . something I have not done since 2000. Meh, who knows what I would have done had I (over) thought about it?
I stand corrected. If Seung had not voted, Derek would have won 40 to 39.
Nice! We started a shit storm!! MVP votes used to be on a write in basis up until this year. Maybe if you expand the list of candidates to "everyone who qualifies for the batting title", then i'm ok with restricting the choices. Otherwise, why not let us vote for who we want to?
I have to say that popularity is key here and it's tough to lose any kind of anything by 1. You feel like you were so close or really were you.
I have been in this league since the 80's when I use to work with Tony Connors and he invited me to play. However, this year was really my first full season of coming every week for the most part. I wanted to see what my stats would be if I played a full season and I was impressed with my numbers.
In losing I guess I felt like the movie Avatar not winning for best picture which tells me in voting, if your on the ballot you have a chance. My thoughts on the process is that maybe the top 10 should be listed, not just 3. Ian was as good of a choice as would of been Alex. However, Zach and Freddy had great numbers as well and should of also been considered.
Seung's reason behind his decision is fine with me except about his not agreeing with my antics on trades. I realize that I got a bit out of hand and this is why I'd tried to come up with some different system to the trades that took place.
However, I joined this league many years ago just for the fun or for the love of it. I can't promise that I won't lose it once or twice during the 2010 season but as my goal last year was to play as many games, my new goal for this year is to just show up and play.
See you on the field.
Derek, I agree that the 3-man ballot was fucked. I'm totally cool with being co-MVP's-- when the vote's decided by one point either way, that's the logical conclusion. This way we can exonerate Shoeless Seung Lee, and move on. Congratulations on your monster season.
Derek, I respect everything you said, especially about the trades. Your response was pure class. Thank you.
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