SABR MVP Voting

Rob Neyer blogs a fun story about a MVP candidate telling a reporter that he will cut off communication if the reporter votes for a rival candidate.

Buster's reaction:

"A vote based purely on a Sabermetric analysis would have its pitfalls as well. There was one year when a star player told a couple of writers that he would never speak to them again if they voted for a certain rival on their ballots, a situation that threatened to undermine that team's clubhouse; and after confirming that appalling story, there's no way I would've ever voted for that player for M.V.P., a situation that a SABR-like approach would've never addressed."

That is a stupid and immature reaction from the star player, however, Buster essentially said that he wouldn't vote for that play because of his comments. If that player is the best player in the game, jerk or lovable, then he deserves to win the MVP award.

Also, when has an athlete said anything meaningful? Charles Barkley is the only athlete I can think of that you would want to get a quote after a sports game. What do athlete quotes add to a sports story? This is one of the reason people turn to blogs like deadspin because they have no access and don't suck up to athletes.

...interruption...

This parlays into another discussion. Ben Roethlisberger. Deadspin did a nice job discussing ESPN's Do Not Report policy on the Roethlisberger case. Well, until this. The speculation is that they don't want to lose his access. When has he said anything important? When has he commented on a game that was not full of sports cliches?

...interruption ended...

Back to the original post. Neyer throws out his guess of A-Rod or Junior. How about Kent or Bonds? Or maybe Kent AND Bonds? Personally, I think it would be awesome if it was Mark Lemke and Jeff Blauser.