“Most Valuable Player”

I just wanted to say that the only league that consistently gets the “MVP” concept correct is the NBA.  Steve Nash has been the MVP for the past two years, and probably should be again this year.  You know why?  The Suns are mortal without him, and damn near unbeatable with him.  As much as I love Gilbert Arenas (which is quite a bit, considering how little I really care about professional basketball), Nash should be the consensus.

The MVP doesn’t NECESSARILY mean “the best player on the best team.”  It can, but it should mean, “the person whose team’s performance would drop the most if they were to be removed.”

As much as I love MLB, they are consistently the worst.  Last year wasn’t so bad, with Justin Morneau and Ryan Howard taking home the prizes.  The Twins and Phillies respectively wouldn’t have been nearly as good last year without those two young men.  But A-Rod in 2004?  The Derek Jeter campaign last year?  This may sound like Yankee-bashing for its own sake, but the New York lineup is so loaded that it’s hard for me to understand how one player can be singled out like that.  Everyone makes everyone else so much better in that lineup.  Put Jeter in Kansas City and we’ll see how valuable he is.  I did agree with the A-Rod MVPs while he was in Texas.  He was clearly the best player in the world at that point, and that team would have been complete trash without him (not that they were really any good with him, but I assure you they were probably a lot better),  Ewing Theory implications aside.