Source: woodypaige.com --- Thursday, November 09, 2017
By MARK KNUDSON @MarkKnudson41 Special to WoodyPaige.com Just when you think MAYBE the Baseball writers have seen the light, and have opted to base their post-season awards on criteria more meaningful than just numbers on a stat sheet, along comes Baseball’s 2017 post-season award finalists. Point: Last season when he won his fourth consecutive Gold Glove AND the Silver Slugger as the best hitting third baseman, Colorado Rockies star Nolan Arenado had his MVP candidacy dismissed by voters who said his team’s lack of success (and the lingering BS about Coors Field, which has been factually debunked on several occasions) showed he wasn’t an actual MVP. They were right. NL MVP voters nailed it last season when they tabbed Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant the National League MVP. While Arenado was the far better defender and better run producer, Bryant did many non-statistical things to help lead the Cubs to their first World Series title in more than a century. Bryant WAS the Most VALUABLE Player in the truest sense of the term. It wasn’t just about stats. Bryant’s recognition in 2016 gave reason to hope that moving forward, the math nerds and number crunchers who have overtaken Baseball’s statistical base were not going to be the ones to solely dictate who won future MVP awards. Then came this season. When the three National League MVP finalists were announced, it was made clear once again that stats – meaningful and not so ...
from Baseball http://ift.tt/2ynxgHj
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