EclectEcon

Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

C'est la vie; c'est la guerre; c'est la pomme de terre . . . . . . . . . . . . . email: jpalmer at uwo dot ca


. . . . . . . . . . .Richard Posner should be awarded the next Nobel Prize in Economics . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

NL MVP - Barry Bonds wins his 7th


Barry Bonds has won his fourth straight Most Valuable Player award for the National League. He was clearly the best player in both leagues, with ungodly high OBA (.609) and SLB (.812) for a massive OPS of 1.421. Most players are considered very good if they have an OPS over .900, and anything over 1.1 is fantastic. Based on his career record, I am willing to argue that Bonds is the best player ever in major league baseball.

That having been said.... (you knew this was coming)....

As I have written before, I wonder whether the criteria for the MVP award should pay more attention to most revenue added to a team. The value of a player might very well be closely related to his playing ability and contribution to team wins (i.e. marginal physical product), but when the team doesn't make the playoffs, those wins didn't add as much to team revenue as did those contributed by the performances of, say, Beltre or Pujols. In the end, since the Giants didn't make the playoffs, did Bonds really add more to his team's revenue than was added by the other contenders?
 
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