L’attaque de Shohei Ohtani a été bien meilleure que celle de tout autre candidat au titre de MVP de la Ligue nationale. Son manque de défense a-t-il une importance ?
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Par EarthWarping
Baseball
L’attaque de Shohei Ohtani a été bien meilleure que celle de tout autre candidat au titre de MVP de la Ligue nationale. Son manque de défense a-t-il une importance ?
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Par EarthWarping
21 Comments
No
Yes
If anyone is going to break the « DH can’t win MVP » voters over it’s Ohtani.
If he is generating more value than any other player in the NL even with the negative attribution you get by exclusively playing DH, then the argument is nullified.
It should, but it’s more the fact that the other NL MVP Candidates are relatively mediocre for the award (Ketel, Lindor). If Witt or even Duran was in the NL, the race would be over.
It shouldn’t. The drop off between him and the competition is so big that nobody else can win the thing.
Especially with a guy like Ketel getting hurt
It matters a little. A player is more valuable if they can play defense at *any* position, in terms of flexibility if nothing else. But being a DH should not be exclusionary.
Personally I think it should. Yes Ohtani is outstanding and yes, he’s as close to a DH MVP as you can get. But also he’s doing all this offense without having to think about playing the field, and being more tired and run down through the season doing so.
It cuts both ways – when Ohtani is a stunning two way player there’s no question of him being MVP because he’s doing literally twice as much as other players, but now he’s only doing half the job – albeit staggeringly well – then that should count against him when there are guys like Lindor who are putting up stellar offence AND defence.
It should *absolutely* matter, yall need to stop treating ohtani like yall treat bonds in steroids discussions and make exceptions for him that you wouldnt make for anyone else (see: people waiving aside bonds character clause concerns but fine with schilling being left off)
Not playing defense should be a pretty big hit to Ohtani’s MVP chances but at the same time, defensive stats are fucking cavepeople numbers and Ohtani is objectively having the best offensive season. At the end of the day I think Shohei will deserve MVP for the same reason Judge will/should: The games about hitting the ball and Shohei/Judge have been the two best in their leagues
I mean, it ~should~ matter since defense is one component of value, but it’s clear that DH-only Shohei hits so well that he’s still the most valuable player in the NL even with his lack of defensive contributions.
If a DH is leading in WAR or is near the top, it makes his argument stronger and the other position players argument worse. It means that the DH with negative defensive WAR is outpacing the opposition enough offensively to compensate for the deficit.
This is what WAR is for. The fact that his WAR is still top 2 in NL despite just being a DH shows you how valuable he is.
Being a DH is no less valuable than a below average defensive 1B and they’ve won plenty of MVPs
The petty side of me though would love to argue that Lindor does 2 things while Ohtani only does 1, and 2>1, so….
It won’t, but IMO it should
Dude could go 50/50 and people are still fretting that he isn’t in the field. Slam dunk MVP.
Just wait for him to start pitching again
Yes, it does matter.
If the gap between his offensive value and the next guy overcomes that defensive gap, he should win anyway.
Lindor is marginally ahead in fWAR. Historically, voters (and front offices frankly) do not put *as much* value on defense as the public facing metrics do. And 0.3 fWAR is well within that « margin of error » range anyway.
If he goes 50/50 this isn’t even a discussion. If he doesn’t, I think he still wins anyway barring changes in their current performance, but Lindor absolutely deserves consideration. EDLC has enough time left to get there too.
No.
Yes, it absolutely does. I don’t see a world where only playing half the game makes you the most valuable to the team (I feel the same way about pitchers winning MVP)
Shohei sometimes played outfield during his NPB.
laser beam.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Sakt_7fHJqE?si=GpltSAuLCCjaX8EM
right fielder
https://youtu.be/Zvaeu2560dM?si=JRucLN4UPyZb2ueL
He just needs to get to 46/46 – 50/50 to lock it up imo