lol, even if he only hits in Coors Field (which isn't true, although he does have a disparity), that has nothing to do with this award. Coors has not inflated numbers overall that much this season, and Holliday has been extremely valuable to the Rockies. Matt Holliday has a better batting average and more RBI than Rollins and Fielder on the road, totally ignoring home stats. 1)Wright 2)Holliday and the rest are in a different bracket. Not on the same level.
Yes, "a disparity" is one way to put it. Another(and my personal choice) would be a Grand Canyon-like chasm between his performance at home and on the road, both this season and over the course of his career. The difference this year is a mere .300 points of OPS and .306 points for his career numbers. As I mentioned in our last discussion about this clown the only other guy with splits even approaching Holliday's is another Coors lifer, Helton who has a mere 230 points of OPS difference in his home/road splits. We're talking about some 7000 PAs in Helton's case and almost 2500 for Holliday so you can't cry small sample size on this one. Look back through history there's no one even remotely close to these two guys and there's no explanation other then Coors Field.
ok, and? He's still very valuable to his team. And he's still a good hitter on the road, albeit not the awesome hitter he is at home. The Rockies do happen to play in Coors Field, and Holliday is a big reason why they have a killer home field advantage. Unless maybe you want to ignore all games in Coors Field and pretend they don't exist?
He's OKAY on the road. If he didn't play at Coors his overall line would probably end up looking something like Jimmy Rollins, from a corner OFer. We don't have to ignore the games in Coors Field, just the raw stats the players put up there. Holliday doesn't deserve MVP consideration.
so we should count the games, but not the production that decides the games? Holliday absolutely deserves to get MVP consideration, and I'd be saying this even if he WASN'T a .300+ hitter on the road. The reason the Rockies are still in the wild card chase is because of their huge home field advantage, which is caused by players like Holliday who outplay the competition at home.
We have no choice but to count the games, but as reasoning people we have the choice to ignore players putting up ridiculous numbers in a ballpark that's more deserving of an asterisk then steroid users when they're pedestrian on the road.
I hate to derail this MVP thread back to the Mets, but I noticed that no one is talking about how they apparently changed the playoff rules (I think this year) that turns out to be very nice for the Mets. In the past, when there was a three-way tie for a division lead (two teams) and the wild card (a third team in a different division), the third team would get the wild card automatically, the loser of the division champion playoff would go home. Now that doesn't happen - the loser of the division champion playoff plays the other team for the wild card. Thus, if the Mets and Phillies both win today, and the Padres and Rockies both lose, the Mets can lose the one-game playoff to Philadelphia and still not be out of it, since they would then play San Diego for the wild card. We're almost as big fans of the Brewers today as we are of the Nats.
Bulger or Pennington? Who should I start in fantasy football today? Oh, Glavine's biggest start with the Mets is today. He better not fuck it up.
Holy crap..... that would be absolutely insane. It's really not all that far fetched that it happens. Arizona has locked up the division and home field while the Rockies have a realistic shot at the playoffs.Throw in the game is at Coors. Advantage Rockies Brewers even though they are out are looking for their 2nd or 3rd (I don't remember) better than .500 season in their history. Padres need to win to get in. Advantage San Diego although I think pitching favors Brewers Mets need to win to have a realistic shot @ playoffs. Glavine who knows what it takes for playoffs on the mound. Mets bats came alive yesterday and game is at Shea which should have a playoff atmosphere. Advantage Mets Phillies and Nats. Washington playing extremely well the last week of the season and really since AS break. Tough luck Jason Bergman vs ageless wonder Jamie Moyer. Philly like the Mets need a win or another tough luck Philly non playoff year. Advantage Phillies. The key in all this is San Diego, they need to lose for any of this to fall into place. A Padres loss and all hell will break loose in the NL. Now just imagine if San Diego didn't have that walkoff win vs. Giants on Tuesday night and they were tied today with Mets , Phills and Rockies. Although like 3rd said I'd much rather have a Mets win and a Phils loss. Forget what happens in the NL West. Just give me that scenario and I'm happy. The worst thing that could happen from a Mets perspective would be tie with Philly and for the WC. Imagine losing a game in Philly and then having to travel to San Diego to face Jake Peavy? Yikes!!! Or having to travel to Coors where the Rockies are unreal and we get killed every single year? Not good.
I don't like Bulger taking a beating in recent weeks. Also, Bills opponents have a 103.3 passer rating compared to the Dallas # of 66.9. Furthermore, I am stuck with McMichael and I'm starting Brian Leonard. That's a little too Ramsy for me, I think. I think the Cowboys will win easily with maybe STL making a backdoor cover. I have 15 minutes to decide if I want to start Chester Taylor over Westbrook based on the possibility of Westbrook not playing tonight.
Ahh, I used Bulger for 3 weeks, I'll go with him again. I don't want to get screwed by him again. I'll chance it that Westbrook plays tonight.
The best situation for the Mets would be Mets win, Phils lose, Padres lose, Rockies win. That way, we get the division, and our opponent in the playoffs (the Padres or Rockies) will be a little more tired, and if the Padres win, Peavyless for at least game 1.
The game between San Diego and the Mets would be at Shea in the three-way tie scenario; it's really impossible to figure out the four-way scenario now, since it depends on choices that teams would be making for themselves.
Even if we did travel to SD which we won't the fact that we could have another shot at the playoffs if losing to Philly takes place is a 1000 times better than just going home
I'm taking the Matt Millen approach. I'm just going to look at scores and then find out later who made the playoffs. Millen actually made a comment like that before the start of a Week 17 game in his final year of broadcasting. I couldn't believe it! Here he was announcing a game and he said he had no interest in the playoff scenarios because he didn't want to bother trying to figure them out! It's one thing if a fan takes that approach. It's another thing when a broadcaster doesn't give a shit.
For those interested, Baseball Prospectus says there's a 12.5% chance the 4-way tie happens. Also says the Mets have a 56% chance at the playoffs, slightly better than Philly's chances.
