Gold Glove Throughts

Adam won it.  Ian didn't. Danny really should have been a finalist... Anyone care about these things? For years the awards were our way of looking at disparate stats (for example on offense : average, RBI, HR, etc.) and deciding which player had the best combination that year given his various circumstances. It was a stamp that signified "Yes you were the best at X this year" because we knew no better way of doing it.

Now of course we do know a better way.  Not a perfect way of course, just a better one, relying on statistical analysis to at least narrow the award fields to a couple of legitimate choices from which whatever personal bias you prefer to throw in there can make the final decision. It's the way things are slowly moving and frankly it's a pretty boring end point. At some point the analysis will be good enough to make all the choices a 1 in 3, 1 in 4 affair at best and more often than we'd like, a obvious no-brainer. Yawn.

What advanced statistical analysis should let us do now is liberate the awards from any sort of statistical backing. Not just Adjusted OPS, (fWAR+bWAR)/2, and UZR but also RBI, AVG, and W.  We know who is the best X this year. That's settled. Why argue about it? What's the point in having an award that says "Yes, 2+2 does equal 4."?

Future votes shouldn't be framed like that.  It should just be "who do you think is the best".  Have fun with it.  Stress that "valuable" in MVP like some people do and explicitly say that means what ever you want it to mean. Best player down the stretch? Sure. Inspirational story? Sure. Most fun player to watch? Sure. Let it be everything. Awards are silly emotional things so just run with that and encourage people to vote anyway they want.

Except Adam LaRoche for MVP.  That's just stupid.