Dear Anonymous: Holliday vs. Rollins

Dear Anonymous,

Just so you know where I’m coming from, I am by no means anti-Philadelphia. How can I possibly dislike a city responsible for Hall & Oates, cheering Michael Irvin’s temporary paralysis, and the magnificently bizarre syncopation at the end of The Roots’ “You Got Me”? I couldn’t hate Philly if I tried.

And I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need a tissue. Dodgers fans, maybe. Mets fans, most certainly. But in my nineteen years of being a Cubs fan, I have spent approximately six days thinking we could win the World Series. The first six. Like many Cubs fans, I operate under the assumption that we will never go to, let alone win, the World Series during my lifetime. Rooting for the Cubs is like rooting for Charlie Brown to kick that football. Even if Lucy held the ball and Charlie Brown split the uprights, I’m sure it would have been brought back on a holding penalty, or Mike Shanahan would have called a time out right before the kick. I understand that. Chicago Cubs just don’t go to the World Series, and for some reason, that is the life that chose us.

With that out of the way, allow me to explain the reasoning behind my Matt Holliday comment: I threw that out there out of a jokingly antagonistic curiosity, and nothing more. It’s like how I said “Phillies” was a stupid name, except I absolutely think that’s true (I get the alliteration and what not, but if you want to be a horse, why not just be a Colt or a Stallion? Why go out of your way to specify that you are a female horse? It’s like the Orioles changing their name to the Baltimore Bitches. Kinda.). Being new to the blog game, I wondered if anybody read it, and furthermore, if anybody reading it even cared about the Phillies and Rays, or baseball in general. With that in mind, however, it doesn’t mean Jimmy Rollins deserved the MVP award. I don’t know either way, maybe he did. Let’s take a look, in a few of my MVP categories.

Bat

Holliday led the league in batting (.340), RBIs (137), hits (216), doubles (50), total bases (386) and extra-base hits (92). His 36 home runs were fourth in the league.

Rollins batted .296, had 212 hits, 38 doubles, 20 triples, 30 home runs, and 94 RBIs. His total bases (380) and extra-base hits (88) are records for shortstops.

Granted: Holliday plays in Coors Field, with a reputation that prompts his numbers to be automatically discounted a bit (he only received one of his first-place votes from an NL East writer, compared to seven for Rollins). With that in mind, it certainly doesn’t help that there was a huge disparity between his home (.376 BA, 25HRs, 82 RBIs) and away (.301 BA, 11HR, 55 RBIs) statistics.

However: Having allowed 241 home runs during the season, the most hitter-friendly park in 2007 was Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, not Coors field (Coors was ranked 5^th according to ESPN). Also, Holliday’s away batting average and on base percentages were still better than Rollins’ numbers at home, away, or combined.

Feet

Jimmy Rollins stole 41 bases. Matt Holliday only stole 11. Rollins had 139 runs (a record for shortstops) compared to Holliday’s 120.

Granted: Rollins is a 160-pound leadoff hitter. He should steal a lot of bases and score a lot of runs. Holliday is 6’4”, 235lbs and probably doesn’t see a lot of pitchouts when he’s on first.

However: That’s still a ton of runs, and 41 steals is pretty impressive in the post-Rickey Henderson era. You have to give credit where credit is due.

Defense

In 2007, Rollins had the second-highest fielding percentage of NL shortstops, committing only eleven errors on his way to his first gold glove.

Holliday had the second-highest fielding percentage of MLB left-fielders, committing three errors on his league-high 306 chances.

Granted: Rollins plays shortstop, perhaps the most difficult position in the field, and plays it remarkably well. Conversely, Holliday plays left field, the dumping ground for crappy outfielders like Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds.

However: Sometimes MVP voters just don’t care that much about defense. Greg Maddux won 20 games and a gold glove in 1992, and finished 11^th in voting. Ozzie Smith won 13 gold gloves and never pulled down the MVP, coming close only one time. On the other hand, Alex Rodriguez has three MVP awards, and Bonds, who couldn’t throw out 62-year old Sid Bream, has seven.

Intangibles

Once you graduate from middle school, nobody should give you an award for being “a vocal leader” or “the heart and soul of the team”. Grown-ass men making millions of dollars shouldn’t need someone to “rally the troops”, or “pep up the locker room”, or any of that other garbage that sportswriters love to say about their favorite players. Intangibles are stupid. I award no points to either competitor.

Hat

Jimmy Rollins wears a hat that says “P”. Matt Holliday’s hat says “CR”. In my opinion, this is clearly no contest. How is it that I don’t walk around in a Rockies hat all day? I really need to start doing this. A bit off-topic, I admit, but still.

So who wins? Well, obviously Rollins won, but did he deserve to? I don’t know. It’s like getting in an argument about which game-show host was better, Alex Trebek or Marc Summers. They’re clearly asked to do different things, yet their job titles are the same. The stupid (and equally fantastic) thing about MVP voting is it’s ridiculously subjective. People can spend their entire lives arguing over the award, and all sides can have perfectly valid points. Upon statistical review, I think the award should have gone to Matt Holliday. However, I will concede that he was not “robbed”, as I jokingly said before. Jimmy Rollins had a fantastic season, and makes for a non-terrible choice for 2007 National League MVP.

Anyway, if you happen to read this and would like to comment back, I’d certainly like to hear your opinion. Thank you for writing, and congratulations on your inevitable 2008 World Series championship.

Sincerely,

Chris Rosenthall