"Grant's Tome" ...Pedroia MVP but Nada from Grant

Dustin Pedroia capped a stellar season by receiving 16 of 28 votes to capture the American League Most Valuable Player award. Pedroia became the de facto team leader during the season with bot a spectacular offensive and defensive season.

Remarkably one scribe, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News omitted Pedroia from any of the ten choices available on his ballot. On WEEI, Grant said he relied on statistical data concerning run production.

Here are the raw data on Pedroia.
  • Silver Slugger, 2b
  • All-Star selection
  • Gold Glove
  • Batting - 2nd
  • Hits - 1st
  • Total bases - 4th
  • Runs created - 3rd
  • Doubles - 1st
  • At bats per strikeout - 2nd
  • Power-speed number - 8th
  • Hall of Fame Monitor - 49 (including MVP points) (likely Hall of Famer > 100)
You can easily argue whether Pedroia deserved to be the top choice among others with outstanding seasons. These include Youkilis, Quentin, Hamilton, Morneau, K-Rod, Longoria, Sizemore, and so forth. But to have the obligation and responsibility to vote for the MVP (not exactly finger on the nuclear codes, but something) and totally omit Pedroia is laughable.

The writer clearly doesn't understand the statistics or had a personal vendetta against Pedroia. Did he have Ian Kinsler's back or did Pedroia fail to grant him an interview on a bad day?

Clearly, we are forced to view Grant as having temporary amnesia, or wonder if he really knows baseball. Many Rangers fans ask the same questions.

For example:

Evan, how the heck do you explain this?

Less than a week ago Pedroia was fourth on your ballot. Why was he left off now? I'm really sincerely curious how you could be so think. Please explain to all of us.

Comments

OldElvis said…
I for one am happy that Dustin won the award, I could see a strong case for Youk as well, seeing as how he played multiple positions for the team. They both were very valuable to the Red Sox. The Extra Bases blog did have the explanation on Grant leaving off Pedroia his ballot, and he cites stats that were not on your page. That said he was still pretty stupid to leave Dustin off.
8:51 AM
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