AL MVP

Sadly, baseball sportswriters proved, once again, they know nothing:

Slappy beats Papi for AL MVP

A-Rod: .321/.421/.610
Papi: .300/.397/.604

*edit* - OK, maybe I'm biased ... but honestly, this came down to two things because they were so similar:

A-Rod: .321/.421/.610
Papi: .300/.397/.604

1. Is a DH a legitimate player?
2. Is A-Rod a leader?

As I mentioned with my comments on Ryne, #2 is a moot point. #1 is harder to prove...Except that A-Rod's VORP is 99.7 and Papi's VORP is 85.8. Where does that difference come from? For VORP, the biggest factor might be that there is a bigger step downward at 3B than DH for a "replacement player", instantly giving A-Rod an advantage. Defense doesn't enter into VORP, so offensively, A-Rod would be more valuable merely because he was so far ahead of any other 3B versus how far ahead Papi was of any other DH.

So, why do I think A-Rod is a poor choice? Take him out of the Yankers lineup, and you still have Giambi, Sheffield, Matsui, Posada, Jeter to pick up the slack. Remove Papi from the Sox, you have Damon, Manny, Varitek and a bag of doorknobs. Ah well, just shows that sometimes, when all the stats line up, it all comes down to who you like better. So much for science.