In more than one column in recent years I have questioned the wisdom of baseball writers who vote for Mike Trout as the American League most valuable player or, as was the case last year, have voted for him second or their ballot when the team he plays for, the Angels, has had a losing record and a fourth-place finish. Trout will very likely receive those votes again this year.

Those voters, in their ignorance of the history of the award, confuse “most valuable” with “best.” To help them understand the idea of the award, I offer this example.

Whether the Astros or the Nationals win the World Series …

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No longer is Washington first in war, first in peace and last in the American League. That line is an old vaudeville joke that was inspired by the decades of poor play by the Washington Senators. But baseball’s Washington franchise is now the Nationals and as National League champions they are playing the Houston Astros […]

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Once upon a time in my lifetime, teams used four-man starting rotations. That practice allowed the Baltimore Orioles of 1971 to have four 20-game winners: Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson, Jim Palmer. In five-man rotations, which the New York Mets initiated in the late 1960s, pitchers don’t get enough starts to win 20.

That change was only the start of the era of pampering pitchers. Pitch counts followed. Someone decided that 100 pitches served as a magical limit to avoid injuries. Of course, the fact that pitchers continued to develop sore arms was ignored. Arms didn’t become weaker. Brains did.

The fact that pitchers, for decades, worked 300 innings in a season without incurring injuries and without shortening their careers eluded managers and coaches. No one was willing to take a chance on reverting to previous practices and incurring blame for any pitcher’s injury.

Bullpens have been expanded. Starters, if they are effective, last only …

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