Quote:
Originally Posted by wlight1
Sure, I can see both arguments. It's just that one is right and one is wrong. Advanced baseball metrics are strictly for wonks if 'wonks' are anybody interested in the game. RBI can be shown to be primarily a measure of how many of your teammates got on base in front of you. Is that the main skill of a good hitter? I guess some people think so.
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Ok, yes. Look, I'm a physics major, so I understand that advanced mathematical formulas like VORP tell the "true" story about a hitter's value. That's what they're for. The reason that there is such resistance, however, is that nobody remembers VORP. Nobody walks away from the ballpark saying, "Woa, that was unbelievable the way that guy walked twice and doubled with the bases empty. That's the greatest thing I ever saw! I bet his VORP is gonna skyrocket!" No. They don't say that. But if a guy strikes out three times and then hits a 1-2 pitch 450 feet with the bases loaded to win the game in the bottom of the ninth, people remember that. People "feel" that. It's special. That's what I'm talking about. Because MVP awards are voted upon, and not simply given to the player with the best VORP, one has a legitimate beef in complaining that OOTP is not following the usual protocol for awarding the MVP. I think that was the OP's sentiment. He was complaining that the person who was awarded the MVP by OOTP was not the person who would have been awarded the MVP IRL, and stricly in that sense, he's right.