Ignorance is fun.

You know what drives people crazy? It's not the spectre of subjectivity and it's not the debating.

It's the inconsistency:

"The whole thing is completely subjective and debatable, which drives statistical analysts crazy, but makes baseball fun."

Well, it's not completely subjective.

Every candidate's case is firmly grounded in statistical analysis.

If it was completely subjective, then Kevin Reese might win the AL MVP simply because his name sorta sounds like former Attorney General Edwin Meese.


"Morneau won because he batted a major-league best .362 after June 7, when the Twins went a major-league best 71-33."

Those are statistics.

You are analyzing them.

That's crazy.


"But then why did most of the Twins endorse Morneau? Simple: They believed that his importance to the team transcended his numbers — which, by the way, were pretty darned impressive.

There's something to that, no matter how many times analysts cite VORP and runs created and all the other newfangled statistics that point to Mauer or Jeter as more deserving MVPs."

No, no, no.

That's bad, bad, bad.

You're admitting that the sportswriters voted for Morneau just because his teammates liked Morneau more than they liked Mauer.

Stop doing it.

Stop asking the players their opinion. This is absolutely the worst way to determine the MVP.

What if most of the Yankees think Chien-Ming Wang should have won the Cy Young? Or Mariano Rivera? Or Scott Proctor?

Are you going to vote for Scott Proctor because Aaron Guiel says Proctor is an inspiration to the rest of the team?


"For those who must know, the Indians' Travis Hafner led the AL in runs created per game last season. Terrific. He also was a designated hitter who appeared in only 129 games for a team that finished fourth in a five-team division. Runs created per game doesn't tell you that, does it?"

Who led the AL in runs created per game? I Must Know.

Even if this particular statistic does not tell me how many games he played or his team's position in the standings. I Must Know Who Led the AL in Runs Created Per Game.


Actually, no stat tells you games played or the team's position in the standings.

Batting average, slugging percentage, errors, stolen bases, runs batted in, OBP, VORP, WHIP, or any other stat.

The only stats that tells you the number of games played is the games played stat The only stat that tells you a team's position in the standings is the standings stat.

The idea is to take all the information you can gather -- honest-to-goodness so-called objective stats and also intangible attributes -- and then you prioritize the data, weigh the data, and analyze the data.

Runs create per game is simply one more piece of information. I don't think anybody claimed that Hafner was MVP of the AL simply because he led the league in one stat.

But, you know, now that you mention it, he might have won the award if he had not gotten hurt. Hafner is a one-dimensional player who can rake and whose team didn't make the playoffs -- kind of like Ryan Howard.


"For the 1,653rd time, the award is not for best stats, not for best hitter, not for player of the year; it's for MVP, however that is defined by voters in a given year."

How about defindng MVP simply as "most valuable player?"

Do you really think Justin Morneau was the most valuable player in the American League in 2006? Because I don't. Even if the Twins players said so.


"As for the AL, it's downright amusing to hear statistical analysts rally to the defense of Jeter, a player they've trashed for years, screeching that his defense was overrated. That's true to an extent, but for heaven's sake, watch the games. Jeter's value is almost immeasurable."

Ken Rosenthal's propensity for hyperbole is almost immeasurable.

But, there you go.

If a player's value is immeasurable, if you can only divine this value by watching the games or maybe asking his teammates, then you no longer have to defend your case with common sense and logic.

You end up with the fourth-best player on the Twins as the MVP of the entire AL.