MVP Award

[StorminZ]

What would be really cool is to have a media rep from each city with a franchise -- the professional baseball writers association -- cast 1st, 2nd and 3rd place votes (or however many you want, say up to 5 votes per rep) ... the winner is determined by a point count for so many 1st place votes, 2nd place votes and so on. Each media person would have a propensity towards certain types of MVP qualities ... for example, MVP to the league vs MVP to his team, strong all-round player versus offensive domination in say HR, batter vs pitcher, established star vs out-of-no-where player (possible flash-in-the-pan), etc. ... the media character is not reliant upon one attribute or quality alone, but a cross-section of various factors that drives his voting. (I'd be interested in what other attributes one might use.) This is a rather simplistic in description, but I think you get the idea. From reading the vote outcomes -- as happens IRL -- then you have the proverbial debate that the Boston media personality just hates Yankees, so he'd never vote for a Yankee if his life depended upon it ... seriously, though, it gives more depth to the MVP selection and makes for interesting debate in online leagues. A similar approach could happen with other awards ... Cy Young and Rookie of the Year.

I also like the notion of selecting in a league setup if you want award winners selected by the AI or by user(s). With human users, you could (would) use the same approach ... cast 1st, 2nd, etc. and determine the award by point counts.

[Ragnar]

Why don't they just go and rename the award to BPA. We all know it's the best player award. There is not a single arguement that can justify a player from a last placed team getting the MVP.

Your in last place with him. You can be in last without him. Now tell me what makes him the most valueable player in the entire league.

[Yaphank League]

Originally posted by Ragnar
Your in last place with him. You can be in last without him. Now tell me what makes him the most valueable player in the entire league.

LOL, you make a very valid point about the "BPA."

But...

What if every team in the league wanted him to play for them? Wouldn't that make him the MVP?

[Ragnar]

Well I guess your right. But that can be said about a few players. Plus they usually go by regular season stats. If Arod had a really bad year due to an injury i'm sure every team would still want him the next season. Yet he would not be voted MVP.

[morellomre]

I think the MVP award should reflect more on how the player helped his team rather then just statistics. For example i believe a player with a .290 average 35 HR's and 110 RBI's for a first place team should beat out a player with a .320 average 45 HR's and 120 RBI's but on a last place team.

[CMH]

The problem is that the game only looks at stats.

There is no real personality, media relation, etc. formula.

Hopefully, as the news reports improve so will the awards.

[fhomess]

I really think letting the user pick the award winners would be the best way to go. I don't think this needs a whole lot of depth beyond that. Yes, media and personality would be cool additions, but to me, they take a back seat to giving more control to the user.

[Henry]

A lot of good ideas from which we can formulate an improvement. I still think the media approach with a user override would be the best of all worlds

Henry

[TheRockCT]

I have to agree Henry That way for leagues where you're flying through without extensive analyzation, you just let the AI worry about the Award Winners, and the cool media approach would enhance that. For online leagues and "extensive" solo leagues though, text editing isn't necessarily horrible, but it could be more user-friendly by just offering an "override" as you call it, as long as it historically documented things correctly.

[Henry]

Ok guys - here's the proposal

Suggestion for improving the experience and adding drama to Award choices.

If the awards "ceremony" was developed a little more in terms of the story it tells, some randomization could be added to the choice - and a simulated vote by the media could be added. In other words, have the game pick out the top 3-10 likely candidates for "best pitcher" - "best batter" - and "best rookie", and have a random vote by the media as to who wins. This vote would be published in a news story, for example...

MVP Voting

There will be some discussion on the media's choice of John Wagner over Bill Adams. Adams accumulated 145 RBIs and 44 Homeruns while John Wagner..... etc.

John Wagner__________128
Bill Adams___________106
Tony Garcia___________76
Wendel Willis_________55
Alex Stefanovich_______9

Cy Young Voting

Vince Baker was the clear winner for this year's Cy Young Award with a 1.22 ERA and a 23.2 win-loss record. Vince simply dominated....... etc.

Vince Baker____________188
Charles Brooks__________84
Danny Walker____________60
Martin Collis___________23
Mark Miller______________7

Rookie of the year Voting

Tough choice for the Rokie of the year award. Three players definately played their hearts out this season, and the statistics simply don't show a clear winner - but the media chooses Pat O'Neil by only a 6 vote margin..... etc.

Patrick O'Neil_______88
Max Chandler_________82
Larry Cokes__________71
Tony Philips_________56
Bubba Jones__________32

Various mathematical methods can be employed behind the scenes to come up with the participants and the vote spread.

A very real level of drama would be added with this type of implementation, and for those who enjoyed the arguements "over a beer", this would give leagues something to talk and write about.

I do think, however, that an overide would also be a nice addition. Some customers and/or leagues want to handle the choice of awards in their own way - and this should be featured within the game without the need to edit game chosen results.

To do this, the question must be posed to the player BEFORE the game moves to the media routine. Only if the player chooses NOT to make his own choices, should th game make them as described above.

On a side note, I think the AllStar balloting should be done in a similar manner using manager votes. This option would have even more meaning with manager personalities - but that's another suggestion

Henry

[Carlton]

Actually it's OPS...that has the highest bearing

I had to override OOTP and put Babe Ruth as MVP when he CRUSHED the HR record with 48.

He lost to Tris Speaker who hit 70 2bs, 15 triples and 10 Hrs...and walked 70 times

Babe walked 102 times had 30 2bs and 3 3bs

[crackpott]

Can you make it so chumps like Grudzielanek get MVP votes from the asshats in the media?

[HolyCow98]

Funny Crackpott

Good ideas...if we could get an overide and the extra depth that would be great....if its too hard to do for a patch..than perhaps just an overide...either or both would be fine and welcome additions to my solo and online leagues.

[mkbdoe]

Only problem Henry, what if there is a total lock for MVP, and when I say that, I mean something Triple Crown-esque, on a Championship team, with no one even close...How would the game be able to determine when to use the random three, and when not to when there is such a case?

[Henry]

Originally posted by mkbdoe
Only problem Henry, what if there is a total lock for MVP, and when I say that, I mean something Triple Crown-esque, on a Championship team, with no one even close...How would the game be able to determine when to use the random three, and when not to when there is such a case?

I'm sure logic could be added that IF the same player rated 1 or 2 in all three catagories, the game could CONSIDER giving him all three. Very unlikely I would think, however.

Henry

[BaseballMan]

I kinda like if you could have an otion of giving pts for each statistical category so then you could decide if an batting avg leader should carry more weight than a hr leader.

I like the media vote in there too but would the teams with the most money or that are at the top have the mv0p players.

I understand the we could finish last without you concept but some teams would still win without the MVP.
To me a MVP on a team that doesnt win the series and that team was only 3 games better than their last years record doesnt make that MVP more deserving than a player who helped his team improve by 15 games. Yes they may still be last but that player was more valuable to that team.
I dont know where or why it was determined MVP had to be on a winner. I mean doesnt MVP stand for Most Valuable Player, not Most Valuable Player on a winning team.
I think MVP should be a combination of a players stats that year and how much better he has made that team.
I know that you cant say exactly how much of the improvement was due to the player but still with the player on the winning team you know didnt make that team much better if that team didnt improve much.

I think this way it wont always go to a winning team or a losing team.

[ComputerFreek129]

Yes... Alex Rodriguez was robbed in 2002... Sure, Texas was a last-place team, but last place in arguably the best division in baseball (back in 2002)... And just imagine how much WORSE the Rangers would've been back then without Alex Rodriguez. He was probably the difference saving the 2002 season from become Detroit-esque.

I think the best way to determine an MVP is to look at how many games that the player won single-handedly... I've been taking down game logs, and looking at Run Production (R+RBI-HR my own stat) and comparing it to the run difference in the game. So, if A-Rod gets a grand slam, with 4 RBIs and 1 Run in a game, his run production equals 4 (because a HR counts as both a run scored and RBI, although in reality it is only one run in the game) If the game was won by the Yankees 10-7, then Rodriguez's production single-handedly won that game, so it counts as a "game won" by Alex Rodriguez.. I've done it with most of of the big-name player's game logs (Excel is a dream, I tell you) and came up with some pretty interesting numbers...
I might've missed a few players (because I don't have the patience to do that many game logs) but I did pretty much most of the top run producers from the 2003 season..

Albert Pujols: 31 "games won"
Ivan Rodriguez: 30 "games won"
Luis Gonzalez: 27 "games won"
Scott Podsednik: 27 "games won"
Richie Sexson: 27 "games won"

A-Rod came in with 26, Bonds with 25, and Delgado with 24, if you were wondering... It gets even more interesting if you divide each player's "games won" by the total number of wins by that player's team, so you can see what percentage of wins that the player played a role in... but what do you guys think of that stat? Not really for the OOTP game but for real-life baseball...

[rogmax11]

Pretty close to what I have asked for Henry, and if implemented in your version I would have no real reason to complain. My hope was to have the game select the top 5 or 10 candidates, rank them by whatever criteria the AI would use, and let the gamer either accede to the computer choices or select a "winner" oneself.

Personally, I dont really care if the ranking criteria is BA, OBP, HRs, ERA, K/IP or whatever--I just want the choice to be mine to agree or disagree. It would be nice if we had some control over the selection variables, come to think of it. That way we could model our universes on the pattern we are most comfortable with, be it BA/HR/RBI or newer stat rating systems.

In any case, this is a big step in the right direction! Thanks.

[Muzamba]

I just wanted to make sure that in any proposal regarding MVP voting, there will be an actual MVP award in addition to the best batter and best pitcher awards. I realize it is rare for a pitcher to win the MVP, but it has happened repeatedly in real life. Many times in OOTP, I have seen pitchers who absolutedly dominated their league in a given year while there were no dominating hitters. Why shouldn't a pitcher be named MVP in these instances?

[BaseballMan]

What i would like to see is to take the indivual player's stats & compare them to how for example many hr s did he contribute. If the team hit 100 and he hit 50 then that would be 50% in that category. Now how much better was the team? Was the player an all-star.? how does his stats match up against the rest of then league.
I think there are many factors to determine an MVP. Your MVP probably wont be the same as mine or someone elses but it would be nice to have more options.