The leagues aren’t identical, but they are more similar than they used to be. So why not consider Cespedes’ early season performance, even if it occurred in the other league? Are we really okay with great seasons being ignored by history when a guy is traded between leagues, when we don’t make that same distinction as long as he’s traded within the same league?
If the purpose of the separate awards for each league is to honor the best seasons of players in that league, than maybe we should only treat the team a player is on at the end of the year as a qualification for which MVP Award a player is eligible to win, rather than assuming that only a player’s value while in that league can count towards his candidacy. Cespedes has legitimately been one of the most valuable players in baseball this year; why should we prefer a methodology that is incapable of recognizing that?
Source: Matthew Kory, FanGraphs
The article also mentions Manny Ramirez, who was traded to the Dodgers in 2008 at the deadline and he proceeded to slash .396/.489/.743 with 17 homers in 53 games. He finished fourth in the MVP voting that year.
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The fact of inter-league play, alone, establishes the point. His contribution to baseball, overall, matters, and, as others in media readily say: how about impact upon a team?
It’s not an easy call…who is the most valuable player to the league, to the team, to MLB overall…
Regardless, I do think it is not coincidence that Cespedes had the signing restriction changed. He sees that he can handle New York, and that New York is certainly embracing him.
No way. Cespedes this month is just only producing at the rate that guys like Harper have for the entire year.
Hi agree with Name. He will get some votes, but it’s really ridiculous in my eyes. No big deal…Id rather he be World Series MVP.
He has great full season numbers. He is the offensive leader of the best offensive team in the NL. Clutch hit after clutch hit. He is the difference maker that transformed a good team into a great team. If the criteria of MVP is a player with excellant numbers (and not significantly less than any another player) who leads his team to a division crown then Cespedes gets my vote.