quote:
Originally posted by Kristogar Velo:
But down the stretch Texas was so far out of it that it didn't really matter how well he played. That was like what the White Sox(Magglio Ordonez especially) did the past two years, where they didn't put up the numbers until after it counted.

Jayson Stark says that Arod didn't perform when they needed him to in this column...here.

Like I said, I haven't been paying attention this year, so I don't know if there are any good counters to what he's saying...
Yeah, I saw that column. He makes some points, but most I can easily counter, and really, he's arguing more that Arod isn't the MVP by the standards of the writers, rather than he's not the most valuable player in baseball. He's essentially admitting the biases and skewed criteria writers consider when voting. Funny.

His biggest point of contention is that Arod wasn't doing well at the beginning of the year when Texas got off to a bad start, saying that MVP's are the guys that are holding up the boat when everyone else is sinking.

Well, if that's true, then Miguel Tejeda shouldn't have been the MVP last year; Alex Rodriguez should have been. Tejeda was batting .272 when Oakland went through their biggest losing streak of the year, falling 6 games under .500. It was when Oakland was winning that he became the MVP. That's real value. When you play well, your team wins.

And, Texas's overall record aside, that was true for Alex Rodriguez this year. When Texas had their biggest winning streak of the year(8 in a row, and 10 of 11), Arod had his best hitting streak(hit safely in 13 straight, 24 of 25 games), and raised his average from .297 to .306. He also hit 6 homers during those 11 games, and hit 15 homers that month.

Brief anecdote here:

Except for the two games in San Juan against the Expos, which were untelevised, I watched every Ranger game this year, but I only went to 1 game live. It was July 31st, against the Red Sox(I went to see Pedro Martinez), and Alex Rodriguez hit a walkoff grand slam. Interestingly enough, 1 year and 3 days earlier, on his 27th birthday, Arod hit another walkoff grand slam, against Oakland.