And the Winner is...the guy with the most 4th place votes?!

MLB Awards season is nearly upon us, so let the discussion (by that I mean arguing and the he said/she said non-sense) begin. Over the last few days Twitter has been the forum for a good discussion on the topic, myself included but mostly amongst the pros much more educated on the subject than myself. (Will Carroll-Baseball Prospectus, Drew Silva -NBC, Nick Scott-BrokenBatSingle.com and the P-D’s Derrick Goold) Most of this discussion was about what criteria should be used and how it should be used in deciding who the CY Young and MVP should go to.  Pundits can argue back and forth about Wins vs. ERA, RBI vs. WAR what tells the better story and why their way of thinking is correct. Truthfully I fall somewhere in the middle on this. My issue, my complaint is this…why are they not just voting for the best…why are they voting for the 3^rd best and in the case of the MVP the 10^th best…seriously that dumbfounds me.  All four major awards are going to be very close this year, which will inevitably lead heated talk this off-season. My advice to those of you with a vote, please, somehow find your way here and read this blog then make it simple…just vote for the best.   

                Let me make this clear first off, I am completely okay with Tim Lincecum winning the 2009 NL CY Young, but this is not HOF voting where multiple players can get in on one ballot. The CY Young and MVP awards are for the BEST PITCHER the BEST PLAYER we shouldn’t be looking at percentages or adding up points. Yes, there are going to be close races (2009 AL & NL MVP voting aside) and people will be upset that their choice didn’t make it but that is sports.  For the CY Young there are 32 voters voting for 3 pitchers for the MVP there are 28 voters voting on 10 players. WHY! Was it really necessary for someone to cast a 10^th place MVP vote for Ian Kinsler last year. Did Will Carroll really need to let us know he though Dan Haren was the 3^rd best pitcher last year, what does this prove. Nothing I argue.   I love Carpenter, but do you realize if he would have had one more 1^st place and one more 3^rd place vote we would had a tie or he might have won while having the fewest amount of 1^st place votes.  The idea that this scenario could have played out and is even a possibility is maddening to me.

                It has only happened twice so maybe that is why it has gone largely unnoticed that this practice is unnecessary. But last year for the 2^nd time the guy with the most 1^st place votes didn’t win.(Trevor Hoffman 1998 was the other). So, “sorry Adam the majority of voters thought you were the best but you didn’t win”, is that how the conversation went. There will still be a 2^nd and 3^rd place most years and bonuses will still be given so calm down players. And voters you may have to re-think how you vote, but that’s okay most of you have been telling everyone else the same thing relating to Sabre metrics for a while now. Vasquez and Haren getting votes serves nothing because neither voter though either was good enough to win…so why vote for them. 32 & 28 voters one vote each, winner take all.

When was the last time you voted for President and they asked who would be your 2^nd let alone 10^th choice.(ignoring the Bush-Gore hiccup) Popular vote should be all that matters. This is one matter where a calculator should not be required, so please can we uncomplicate things.


                              2009 National League CY Young Voting (from MLB.com)

Player, Club                                       1^st           2^nd          3^rd           Total Points

Tim Lincecum, San Francisco      11           12           9              100

Chris Carpenter, St. Louis             9              14           7              94

Adam Wainwright, St. Louis        12           5              15           90

Javier Vasquez, Atlanta                 -              1              -              3

Dan Haren, Arizona                         -              -              1              1

October in St. Louis...

…Usually this means we are getting ready for Playoff Baseball and I, like many, all but bought my tickets back in April.  Well for the third time in four years that will not be the case here in St. Louis.  For the third time in four years the best player in baseball will be at home not on Fox, TBS or whoever is carrying the games this year.  And most notably, for the fourth year in a row a team with Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, Albert Pujols and the 3^rd winningest manager of all time, will fail to win a playoff game. Unacceptable, upsetting and….maybe a good thing.

                Now before anyone gets fired up, I want the Cardinals to make the playoffs, I love the Birds on a Bat and I would much rather have them in than out of the playoffs. My point is this is not necessarily a bad thing. St. Louis has two other major sports teams in the Rams & Blues with a major college football program, Mizzou, only 2 hours away. It’s time they got their share of our October support usually reserved for the Cardinals. Let’s get behind and get excited about Pro Football and Hockey again in this town. We have #1 pick lining up behind center, a strong and young Blues team that should fight for a playoff spot again and a Top 25 CFB team that should compete for the Big 12 North. I am tired of waiting for November for our town to get behind them.

 Fans here always boast about supporting three sports teams, well then do it. Stop supporting one all of the time and the others only when they are winning or it’s convenient. Our town, our little-big city is much more exciting when we are behind the Blue & Gold and the Black & Gold as much as we are behind the Red & White. Try it, it will make the winter a lot more bearable rather than sitting around waiting for baseball’s winter meetings to take place only to be disappointed in who the Cards didn’t sign or trade for.

St. Louis will always be a baseball town, I know this. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also be a Football and Hockey town. We were before…and it was great. Rams are playing now and the puck will soon drop and Scottrade, give ‘em chance people, they might surprise you.

Farewell Mizzou…We’ll See You in Five Weeks

Does anyone else feel like this, is anyone else out there as tired of it as I am? Season after season, especially the last six we (I am going to use “we” as my designation for myself and all Tiger fans) get excited for the start of MU football; tailgating, a good match up, and watching it on TV, only to then suffer major let down for the next five weeks. Aside from the tailgating, that is what is about to happen to us all yet again.

Bring on the Murderers Row of McNeese St., San Diego St. , Miami(OH), and a bye week. Which I am sure MU will need after those punishing games. And yes I understand all teams get and need a bye week, it’s just frustrating because it adds another week to our desire to watch a quality MU game. For the sake of this “article” I am going to go ahead and assume that no network or channel is going to pick up any of these games. Unless of course the Big Ten Network decides….oh wait…That means we will have to shell out roughly $120 a person should we decide we want to watch these games. Seriously, $120 for that lineup of games, tickets to those games don’t even cost that much.

My point is this MU Athletic Dept…SCHEDULE BETTER games! And guess what will happen, you’ll get on TV more, which gets you more exposure and what it is really all about you’ll get more money! And another positive side effect is that it will actually make you a better football team and more prepared for the Big 12 conference schedule. Seriously it will. MU always seems to stumble in the first one or two conference games and it is my opinion that our weak pre-season is largely responsible for that. How does playing any of these teams prepare the Tigers for 10/23 when the Sooners come to town? It doesn’t it.

Understand I am not asking you to schedule Ohio St., Va Tech or Alabama (granted all three of those are playing non-conference games against Top 25 teams). But maybe some strong teams from the region or Top 50 teams from the country. Heck just keeping Illinois on the schedule would be a start. Play a team like Houston, Air Force, through your old O-Coordinator Wyoming a bone.

We will miss you these next five weeks so please try and beef it up a bit, for us and for you. It will work, I promise!