By Ed Morrone, Bob Bonett, and Tim Robertson
Rollins’ ability to backup his preseason smack talk should land top honors – Ed Morrone
Full disclaimer: This argument is only valid should the Phillies make the playoffs
There’s a certain player on the Philadelphia Phillies who chimed in with an opinion about eight months back, proclaiming his team to be (gasp!) “The team to beat” in the NL East. While Mets fans whined and complained and crucified this player, a funny thing happened. Jimmy Rollins backed it up.
When every teammate of his was bit by the injury bug, Jimmy Rollins kept playing. When seemingly every starting pitcher the Phillies sent out there underachieved, Jimmy Rollins helped out with some run support. When the Phils absolutely needed a clutch hit, guess who stepped up and got it? Well, it should be the 2007 Most Valuable Player, Jimmy Rollins.
But see, here’s the big problem. The Phillies are currently on the outside looking in for the playoff picture, as they always seem to be. And I’ve followed baseball long enough to know that the league isn’t going to reward another Phillie with an MVP award if the team again fails to qualify for the postseason (See: Ryan Howard in 2006). That’s where that icky little disclaimer at the top of this column comes in. Even if I think Rollins deserves the award regardless of the Phillies fate is irrelevant.
But wait a minute. Rollins has been the only constant on a Phillies team that has suffered an unprecedented amount of injuries. Almost every key player (Howard, Chase Utley, Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, Tom Gordon) has either spent time on the disabled list or was an enigma until July (yes, I’m talking to you, Pat Burrell). That is, everyone except Rollins.
Rollins is out there every day (OK, he was given ONE day off this season) as the Phillies catalyst. He is the engine that makes that team go. Take a look at some of these stats: .293 average (in almost 700 at-bats), 30 home runs (he’s 5-foot-8!), 91 RBI, 37 stolen base, 200+ hits and a respectable .342 on base percentage. Oh yeah, he also hit .346 (28-for-81) with six home runs and 15 RBI against the team he dared to run his mouth off at. Regardless of whether the Phillies make the playoffs or not, Rollins did his part. When it came to put up or shut up, J-Roll went with the former.
Let’s not forget the guy is an awesome defensive player. Nobody that doesn’t watch him play on a regular basis would know this because in baseball, bats speak louder than gloves and chicks dig the long ball. But if Rollins (11 errors) didn’t play in the sam league as the ageless Omar Vizquel, he’d be an annual Gold Glove winner.
Sure, the other two candidates for MVP, David Wright and Matt Holliday have had outstanding seasons. I wouldn’t even try to deny that fact. Wright has kept that Met team afloat when almost every other player seemed to abandon ship. And where would the Rockies be without Holliday, who has become the next Todd Helton when Helton is still a top-notch player on Colorado’s roster.
But at the same time, I can’t give the award to Wright when his team has essentially backed into the playoffs. As for Holliday, his numbers are through the stratosphere, sure, but during Colorado’s current late charge toward October, it’s been guys like Helton and Brad Hawpe and Troy Tulowitzki leading the way. Holliday will have many more chances to win this award, trust me (although if Colorado somehow miraculously sneaks in, it’s his this year).
Rollins, meanwhile, has been a constant for his team all year. When the walls appeared to be caving in around the Phillies, Rollins stopped them from crumbling by having a big game or a clutch hit. When teammate after teammate set up shop in the training room, Rollins was still out there every day at shortstop. When everyone doubted the always doubtful Phillies, the little guy with the biggest heart gave them some hope.
Yes, it was Jimmy Rollins that said the Phillies were the team to beat. Through no fault of his own, maybe he was just a little bit off with that prediction. But if he can get his team over this final hurdle, forget about David Wright and Matt Holliday.
In that case, the guy who said his team was the one to beat will become the player nobody can beat in the NL MVP race.
On numbers alone, Matt Holliday emerges as the far away favorite for MVP – Tim Robertson
This shouldn’t even merit a debate. Why would anyone question the NL MVP? There simply is only one choice: Colorado Rockies leftfielder Matt Holliday.
When one takes a look at his numbers alone, the book closes. Holliday entered Tuesday the leader in RBIs (131), doubles and hits (48, 205) and second in batting average (.337), four points below Chipper Jones, who’s played in 23 fewer games. Holliday also ranks second behind Prince Fielder in slugging percentage (.609) and fourth with 36 home runs.
The critique from “the experts” is his home field. Well, of course he hits better at home, everyone performs better at the park where they play 81 games. A quick look at Holliday’s splits show a .374 batting average, 77 RBIs and 25 homers at Coors Field, and a .298 batting average, 54 RBI and 11 homers on the road. The variance between home and away is far from unusual. In Barry Bonds’ 2004 MVP season, he batted 98 points better in San Francisco and hit seven more homers into McCovey Cove than out of visiting ballparks.
But what about all that thin air in Denver? Well, since the Rockies installed a humidor nearly a half-a-decade ago, dampening the ball, thus negating the thin-air effect, runs and hits are back down to sea level. Although Coors Field ranks high in offensive categories – homers, hits and runs scored – it doesn’t rank first in anything. Beloved Fenway comes in first in runs scored, Citizens Bank in home runs and Fenway once again in runs scored.
An MVP from the Rocky Mountain state isn’t unheard of, either. In 1997, Larry Walker, one of the original Blake Street Bombers, earned MVP honors in a landslide, earning 22 of the 28 first-place votes.
“He might be MVP, if the Rockies make the playoffs.” That is blasphemy. Walker’s Rockies missed the playoffs in 1997, and Alex Rodriguez brought home the hardware when he played for the cellar-dwelling Texas Rangers. Even though the Giants had mediocre seasons in most of his award-winning years, Bar-roid Bonds still won the Most Valuable (and juiced) Player.
Plus…
As of Tuesday, the Rockies trailed the Phillies and Padres by a game in the Wild Card and the Arizona in the NL West by four games. Depending on how the Rockies performed in their latest series against the reeling Dodgers – on a downward spiral since the Rockies swept them the week before – Colorado could skip over the Wild Card and beat out the Diamondbacks for the division in a three-game, head-to-head series with the DBacks this weekend.
Here’s a little background of the future MVP winner, so no one looks like a fool for not knowing him. The Rockies drafted Holliday in the seventh round in 1998, and he made is Major League debut in 2004, the only season he did not hit .300. The epitome of the Rockies young and talented club came up through the system with five of his fellow starters, and quickly is joining Todd Helton as the face of the franchise.
Then what would the naysayers bring up against Holliday?
Perhaps the protection he enjoys in the lineup with a Hall of Fame first baseman hitting behind him, a 20-home run guy in front of him in the two-hole and a 20-homer guy batting fifth. Well dear friends, Holliday set a career-high in walks this season with 58 – seven intentional – so evidence is to the contrary that pitchers don’t shy away from the right-handed hitter.
Holliday, in his fourth year in the majors, doesn’t only excel at the plate, he’s an all-around player. Holliday ranks third behind Eric Byrnes and Carlos Lee for assists by a left fielder, with seven, one shy of his career-high.
There isn’t a need to take the political approach and attack other “candidates” and degrade their successes. There isn’t a need because their best efforts pale in comparison to what Holliday accomplished this season.
David’s got the Wright stuff to justify him being the league’s most valuable player – Bob Bonett
With an inordinate amount of drama surrounding the tight postseason chase in the National League, rapping about seasonal awards has become nearly a moot point.
The fact of the matter is, though, that as close as the Padres, Phillies, Mets, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Brewers and Rockies may be in their respective races, the race for the NL MVP award is even closer.
However, while I will give in that the race is one of—if not the most—closest races in recent history, the clear-cut favorite, and deserved candidate, is David Wright.
Take a glance around the Mets roster. Plagued with a plethora of has-beens (See: Carlos Delgado, Tom Glavine and Pauk LoDuca), never-weres (See: Pedro Feliciano, Guillermo Mota or any of the Mets bullpen) and overrated, overpaid underachievers (See: Carlos Beltran, John Maine and Billy Wagner), the only consistent source of performance for New York has been their young, yet beyond-his-years mature, third basemen.
The knack on Wright at first this year was inconsistency. Early on, it was downright mind-baffling; he kicked off the season looking like Rey Ordonez, sporting a .681 OPS with zero home runs, only six runs batted in, and three paltry stolen bases.
Yet, since that horrid first month, Wright has looked downright Ruthian. In 494 at bats since the snail-like start, the next incarnation of Mike Schmidt has hit 30 long balls to go along with 99 RBIs, 31 steals and a pretty .336 batting average. Extrapolate those numbers over a full season, and Wright is pushing a year of unprecedented numbers—think 45 homers and 45 stolen bases with 125 runs batted in.
Yes, Alfonso Soriano neared numbers this impressive last year and Hanley Ramirez will probably approach that type of season sometime in the near future. However, carrying that pace for such a heavy chunk of the season is something that never really been approached, let alone by a 24-year-old.
Remember, Wright is still arguably a raw talent. He is in only his fourth season in the bigs, of which only three were full years. He still isn’t even featured in the lineup with big-name stars such as Delgado and Beltran misguiding manager Willie Randolph into putting them in the RBI spots in the order almost exclusively until more recently, when Wright was finally promoted to the No. 3 spot in the lineup.
Imagine what Wright will do next year with Reyes and Castillo in front of him, two of the game’s fastest players, with a full year of hitting third? Not only will he approach the 40-40 mark; he may close in on 140 runs batted in.
The argument at hand, though, is still this year. And even with the lackluster opening stretch, Wright is hitting .322 with 30 homers, 34 steals, and over 100 runs and RBIs each.
Moreover, these numbers have come coupled with injuries and suspect players by the Mets’ top paid-players: Delgado missed over 20 games, Pedro Martinez just returned, Beltran pulls up lame in the outfield seemingly every other day and while Jose Reyes has been incredible, he has been ineffective with No. 2 hitters (until the Luis Castillo acquisition) in the lineup grounding into double-plays that take the superstar off the basepaths.
The main argument against Wright, outside of the fact that Holliday and Rollins are having great seasons, is that the Mets are loaded with enough talent that they would still compete in the National League East.
Hold on a second, though. The team’s pitching staff is absolutely abysmal. Feliciano and Mota cannot buy an out in their sixth and seventh inning roles, Heilman never gets out of the eighth without allowing somebody to reach scoring position—and more times than not, score—while Wagner has completely crumbled down the stretch due to his mismanagement by the league’s most overrated manager, Willie Randolph.
Then, on the offensive end, as mentioned above, the Mets are grossly overrated. Reyes and Castillo are each great top-of-the order hitters and, coupled with Wright, make an incredible 1-2-3 punch. However, with the cancers that are Delgado and Beltran still in the middle of the order, LoDuca still catching ahead of Ramon Castro on the depth chart and Moises Alou, Shawn Green, Lastings Milledge and Endy Chavez making up an entirely inconsistent outfield platoon offensively and defensively, Wright is the without-a-doubt most essential contributor in the lineup.
Without Wright patrolling the hot corner, the Mets would not be en route to the worst collapse in nearly 70 years, but instead looking at third place behind the Braves and Phillies in the East.
Talk about Holliday’s numbers and Rollins’ ferocity on the field. When you step back and look at Wright’s basic value to the Mets, he is the definitive choice for the league’s most valuable asset to a team.
Right now, though? Give J-Roll the MVP. Celebrate Holliday’s excellence.
Just let the Mets make the playoffs!
Jimmy Rollins made some gutsy preseason predictions, tagging his team as the NL East’s team to beat. Six months later, Rollins’ numbers suggest he was up for the challenge. (Flickr.com)
Wright’s stuff is crucial to any New York success. (MSNBC.Com)
Against all odds, the Colorado Rockies have made a furious, late season push to make the playoffs. Behind the run has been outfielder Matt Holliday (center). (MLB.Com)