Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
How can Barry Bonds be the MVP when he's such a lousy left fielder? The Stat of the Day tells all. Hint: It's a trick question.
Sep 23, 2004 | Welcome to the penultimate Barry Bonds for MVP Stat of the Day. It's almost time to retire this feature and turn our attention to the always exciting struggle among mediocre teams for the last playoff spot.
At the moment in the National League the Giants are threatening to jump out of that contest against the Cubs and Astros by taking the lead in the West, but fear not. The Dodgers are playing poorly enough that they'll parachute right into the wild card race if the Giants pass them.
A gratifying number of readers, at least two or three, have written in to say the BB4MVPSotD has swayed them. "I was pretty much in favor of Barry winning the MVP before, but any ambivalence I had has been blown away," reads one from Tom Abernathy. "I give; you've convinced me." Jason Hare writes from St. Louis, anti-Bonds central: "This Cardinal fan is convinced."
But there are still objections to the idea of Bonds winning his seventh Most Valuable Player award. They are, in decreasing order of ridiculousness: He's won enough MVP awards already, he's a jerk, he's a horrendous left fielder and he's on steroids.
We'll talk steroids Friday.
A player can't win too many awards. If he deserves it every year, he should win it every year. If you don't like it, be patient. He'll get old and fade away eventually, though with Bonds, who's 40, one has to wonder. Having an award for Most Valuable Player Except for the Guy Who's Really the Most Valuable Player is just beyond stupid.
As for Bonds being a jerk: It's unwise to judge someone you've never met based on how he's portrayed in the media. A lot of people who come off as pretty nice are really pretty jerky, and vice versa. My own personal experience with Bonds is extremely limited, and I can't say he disabused me of the notion that he's a jerk. But I also can't say he had much of a chance or a reason to do so.
And I can also say that in limited personal interactions with the other MVP "candidates," I've found at least one of them to be a complete prick, which doesn't mean he really is one in some objective way, and which also doesn't alter my view of him as a ballplayer one tiny bit. If winning the MVP had anything to do with being a nice guy, Harold Reynolds would have won a truckload of them. Prince of a guy, from what I hear.
So that brings us to the Barry Bonds for MVP Stat of the Day: Defense.
OK, that's not a stat, but we're going to talk about it anyway.
The argument here is that Bonds doesn't deserve to be the MVP because he's a terrible left fielder, slow and lazy and with a rag arm. Those making this point correctly note that the award is Most Valuable Player, not just Most Valuable Hitter. All that offensive production by Bonds, the argument goes, is canceled out by his awful defense.
There are two problems with this argument. The first is that even if Bonds were the worst left fielder in memory, he probably couldn't do enough damage in the field to cancel out the offense he produces.
The second, and more important, is that Bonds isn't a terrible left fielder. He's not even a bad one.
Get Salon in your mailbox!