This seems like as good a place to resume as any. It has been a rocky respite, neither planned nor welcomed, but something that couldn’t be avoided. But as someone wrote long ago, all’s well that ends well.
Much I would like to have written about has occurred in my nearly two missing months, and you’ll please excuse me if I belatedly bring up some of them. However, this is a current event, so I will begin with this.
How is Mike Trout the American League most valuable player? Of what value was he to the Angels’ last-place finish in the A.L. West? Could they have finished worse without his contribution? Fifth maybe?
Are the Baseball Writers giving Trout credit for leading the Angels to only the third worst record in the league instead of the worst?
The writers are entitled to their opinions, but their opinions leave them open to question and criticism.
In selecting Trout as m.v.p. for the second time in his five-year career, in my opinion, they have made the same mistake as many non-voters. They have mistaken “best” for “most valuable,” or vice versa, whichever way you prefer.
The award presented annually by the Baseball Writers Association of America is not and has never been for the best player in each league. It is for the player deemed most valuable. That is the beauty of the award, and it is what makes the award different from others.
Yet writers dwell not only on Trout’s value to the Angels but his standing as perhaps the best player in the league. For example, in The New York Times, Tyler Kepner writes, “Trout has widely been considered the best player in baseball for five years, yet had previously won just once…”
Kepner, however, like other writers, doesn’t address Trout’s value. The idea of value is completely ignored. Why? It is the “most valuable player” award. If Trout won the award for being the league’s best player, the award was given in error. Someone else deserves it.
The commissioner’s office gives an award to the player deemed the best hitter in each league based primarily on a vote of fans. It is named after Hank Aaron and goes to the players with the best statistics. My 8-year-old grandson, Noah, could figure that out. Noah, however, might have more difficulty figuring out an award based on value.
If the BBWAA wanted to give a “best player” award, it could simply line up a bunch of statistics, especially in today’s world of new-fangled metrics, and designate the players at the top of the list as m.v.p. For all I know, that is what some of the voters did. Sad if they did because they would be forfeiting their right and ability to think.
But Trout led the majors in the wildly popular metric known as W.A.R. (Wins Above Replacement) with 10.6. And not surprisingly, the next three finishers in the A.L. m.v.p. voting were Mookie Betts, Jose Altuve and Josh Donaldson, who just happened to place second, third and fourth, respectively, behind Trout in W.A.R.
For good measure, Kris Bryant, the National League m.v.p., was first in W.A.R. in the N.L. with 7.7.
The voters should be congratulated for their diligence, hard work and perceptive thinking in selecting the m.v.p.s and compiling their ballots. I suppose it’s the modern way of performing this onerous chore. Why think when you can just copy names from a list already computed elsewhere?
Why not change the name of the award from m.v.p. to W.A.R. Lord?
The point is there is more to a player’s value to his team than simple statistics. Certainly statistics play a large role in a player’s value to his team, but so do other factors, not all of which can be measured with numbers.
As good as Trout might have been, the Angels could have finished last without him. Could the Red Sox have won the A.L. East title without Betts or Ortiz? Could the Astros have contended without Altuve, the Blue Jays without Donaldson, the Orioles without Manny Machado?
Did any of them contribute more than the others in ways that were not quantifiable? I don’t know; I lost too much of the season to make a judgment. But did the voters, who presumably watched closely all season, consider other factor, or did they decide to take the easy way out and not go to war with W.A.R.?
Whatever they did, they have left me puzzled. They have not told me – or you – what Trout did to help the Angels finish last and why he deserve baseball’s most prestigious award for it?
MANFRED FAILS AT MINORITY HIRING
Rob Manfred is a lawyer, the commissioner of Major League Baseball and a con man. He would reject that last description, but how else to characterize Manfred when he talks about what he’s doing to enhance minority hiring in Major League Baseball?
MLB and minority hiring have no relationship and don’t belong in the same sentence. When Bud Selig was commissioner he made a pretense of promoting the hiring of blacks and Latinos. He established a policy telling owners if they sought a person for a policy-making position (including manager), they had to interview a minority.
Selig initially enforced he policy, but it eventually became a farce. Any excuse, it seemed, would do to allow clubs to elude the policy. In addition, minority interviews often became sham interviews. One alleged prospective candidate, a minority, was interviewed via telephone. Not surprisingly, he didn’t get the job.
Kim Ng, a former assistant general manager, currently an executive in the commissioner’s office, has often been interviewed for a general manager’s job, and I hope the interviews were genuine. But I seriously doubt it. Intending no insult to Ng, whom I respect, I have suspected that she was being interviewed to meet the requirement. I don’t believe a major league owner would hire a woman as general manager.
A couple of years ago four clubs seeking general managers interviewed four different members of minorities, technically meeting the Selig rule. However, all four held low-level front-office positions and realistically had no chance to be named general manager. The scheme was transparent, but Manfred let the clubs get away with their scheme.
Manfred has talked a lot about minority hiring, saying how important it is. But it evidently is not important enough for Manfred to do what he did to induce the Brewers to hire David Stearns as general manager. Stearns worked for Manfred in the labor department of the commissioner’s office, and Manfred made sure the Brewers hired him.
Manfred has done no such thing for any minority, including DeJon Watson, an experienced African American front-office executive, who is widely considered the most capable unemployed minority candidate for a front-office job.
Watson, who doesn’t want to be considered a minority candidate, was most recently senior vice president of baseball operations for the Diamondbacks, who did not renew his option for 2017. He is joined in his departure by general manager Dave Stewart, who was fired.
The Diamondbacks’ developments are pure baseball. Two years ago the Diamondbacks hired Tony La Russa, a Hall of Fame manager with no front-office experience, as chief baseball officer. He was to run the team’s baseball operations, and run them he did, right into the ground.
So the Diamondbacks fired everyone La Russa brought in – Stewart, Watson and manager Chip Hale – but retained La Russa, who didn’t have the class to resign in support of his people who were fired.
La Russa might have had reasons for staying on the job – other than having a job, I hope – but I am not impressed with his decision.
Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks had to replenish their front office, and they did it with white guys. They named Mike Hazen, the Red Sox assistant general manager, to be their general manager. The Twins hired Thad Levine, assistant general manager with the Rangers, as their general manager.
Hazen and Levine have put in their time and deserve their shot, but there are few minorities in their position because teams don’t hire them at lower levels and give them a chance to advance. As long as that circumstance persists, the color and look of front offices will not change.
Manfred’s Pipeline Program, in which he plans to have young minorities flow through the pipeline into major league jobs, will be a washout if he can’t induce clubs to hire minorities in the first place.
Manfred’s wishful plans suffered an embarrassing blow last week when he severed MLB’s working relationship with Korn Ferry, an executive search firm MLB hired last year, because of conflicts in interest. This is worse than embarrassing; it’s humiliating that a commissioner of a major professional sports league has to admit publicly that he screwed up.
How closely did Manfred and his staff investigate Korn Ferry before hiring the company? What kind of leadership does that demonstrate? Certainly nothing to be proud of.
If a commissioner can’t properly select a hiring partner, how can he be expected to conduct a minority hiring program?
Actually, Manfred could have settled and enhanced baseball’s minority hiring from the day he took office Jan. 25, 2015.
When he took office, MLB had a fellow named Frank Marcos running MLB’s scouting bureau. He was a master at minority hiring, and the scouting bureau was loaded with minorities – blacks, Latinos, even a woman.
When Manfred assumed command, though, Marcos left the bureau. I wasn’t sure if he left voluntarily, but something Manfred said when I mentioned Marcos’ name made me think the commissioner didn’t like him. That’s too bad. It’s too bad for baseball.
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I want to express my thanks and appreciation to all of the readers who expressed best wishes for my recovery. I am completely healthy and hope to continue writing regularly.