Love It or Leeve It: A-Rod Shouldn't Have Won

Alex Rodriguez deserves an “A” for effort. A-Rod is, quite possibly, the best player in baseball, and those lucky enough to watch him play every day speak about his work ethic and drive to improve.

But A-Rod doesn’t deserve three other letters: MVP.

Almost every year the issue of value arises when deciding postseason awards. What’s more important—the individual or the team?

Four of the 145 players to win MVP have played on teams with losing records, with only one playing on a last-place team. Clearly, in the past how the player’s team finishes has been important in determining his value.

The Rangers went 71-91 in 2003 and finished 25 games out of first. Meanwhile, of the four players who finished directly behind A-Rod—Carlos Delgado, Jorge Posada, Shannon Stewart and David Ortiz—three directly contributed to their teams making the playoffs. The fourth (Delgado) played on a third-place team which, although the Bluejays faded down the stretch, contended far longer than the Rangers.

Compare A-Rod’s season to Delgado’s, and the Blue Jays posted comparable if not better numbers. Delgado hit .302 with 42 homers, 145 RBI, a .426 on-base percentage and .593 slugging percentage. A-Rod hit .298—the first time he dipped below .300 since 1999—with 47 homers, 118 RBI, a .396 OBP and a .600 SLG. The 118 RBI were his lowest total since 1999 as well.

With runners in scoring position, Delgado hit .357. A-Rod hit .257. With runners in scoring position and two out, Delgado hit .367. A-Rod hit .300.

Granted, the knock against Delgado is that he faded during the playoff chase, and most of his RBI came in the first half of the year.

So look at Ortiz, who deserved the MVP even more than Delgado. In the last two months of the season, Ortiz hit 19 homers and drove in 47 RBI. He collected an astounding 16 game-winning hits for the Red Sox, which was in the middle of a heated race, first for the AL East and then for the wild card.

That’s value.

This year wasn’t even A-Rod’s best year. His numbers from 2003 pale in comparison to his monstrous 2002 campaign, when he hit 10 more home runs and knocked in 24 more runs.

A-Rod didn’t win last year because Miguel Tejada led the A’s to the playoffs by virtue of a great September. Rodriguez shouldn’t have won this year because the Rangers would have finished last with or without him.

A-Rod won the MVP with just 61.7 percent of the available 392 points, which is the lowest for a winner since 1951. Only six writers picked him first, the lowest since 1957. It’s clear that the choice was dubious at best.

He doesn’t deserve the award because he had great years before and was passed over. He doesn’t deserve the award for being the game’s best player of the year who just happens to be stuck on a terrible team. It’s the most valuable, not the best.

And A-Rod doesn’t need our pity.

No one forced him to sign that ridiculous contract. He has plenty of MVPs in the future if he ever claws his way out of Arlington onto a contending team. No one doubts he has the talent—he just needs the stage.

You want value? Look in his bank account.

You want an MVP? Look somewhere else.

—Staff writer Brenda E. Lee can be reached at belee@fas.harvard.edu.