Major League Baseball

Kershaw revives age-old argument: Can a pitcher be MVP?

Published Sep. 16, 2014 5:02 p.m. ET

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Ken Rosenthal

Either you believe or you don’t, right? Either you think a starting pitcher can be a deserving MVP, or you think that the award should go to a position player.

Well, yes. Except -- as I’ve written previously regarding my Hall of Fame vote -- once the ballot is in your hand, the obvious sometimes becomes less obvious, and black and white sometimes turns to gray.

I’m a National League MVP voter this year, and a starting pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, is a strong candidate for the award -- such a strong candidate, in fact, that his teammate, Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said, “If somebody even tries to mention someone else, they’re an idiot.”

Sorry, Adrian -- the Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton, Brewers’ Jonathan Lucroy and Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen also deserve mention, and I would add the Giants’ Buster Posey, Cardinals’ Jhonny Peralta and even the Nationals’ Anthony Rendon and Pirates’ Josh Harrison and Russell Martin as players worth considering.

That’s eight names, so I guess I’m an idiot eight times over.

But we digress.

The biggest issue for me -- and certain other voters, I imagine -- is what to do with Kershaw.

The instructions voters receive are nebulous. The first two criteria -- “actual value, that is strength of offense and defense” and “number of games played” -- seemingly favor position players. But the last line in the instructions is, “Keep in mind that all players are eligible for MVP, including pitchers and designated hitters.”

So basically, we can vote however the heck we want. And it’s hardly unprecedented for voters to choose a starting pitcher.

Since 1911, when the awards were introduced, voters have chosen 11 starters in the AL, most recently Justin Verlander in 2011, and 10 in the NL, most recently Bob Gibson in 1968.

I’m not opposed to a starting pitcher winning, but I prefer to vote for position players. Three years ago, when I was an AL MVP voter, I had Jacoby Ellsbury first and Verlander second. Looking back, I’m not sure that made total sense.

Go back to my first sentence: You’re either in or you’re out, right? If I wasn’t going to vote for Verlander, shouldn’t I have left him off my ballot entirely?

Perhaps, but I didn’t view the choice quite so rigidly, and neither did other voters. Verlander’s support, in fact, was all over the ballot. He received 13 first-place votes out of 28, but also three seconds, three thirds, four fourths, a fifth, two sixths and one eighth. One voter omitted him entirely, evidently believing that pitchers simply should not win, regardless of our instructions.

I’ll probably get crushed for this, but I had another reason for including Verlander and placing him high on my ballot. Knowing that many of my brethren planned to vote for him, I didn’t want to be the one responsible for his not winning the award.

You can rightly ask, “Ken, where is the courage of your convictions?” Well, for one thing, I wasn’t totally convicted -- “conflicted” would be more accurate. For another, we’re talking about an MVP vote, not a presidential election or trial by jury. I didn’t buy the Verlander/MVP narrative as much as others. But I also didn’t want to rob him by taking an inflexible -- and pretty much indefensible -- position.

Which brings us back to Kershaw.

His performance this season is appreciably better than Verlander’s in 2011 by virtually every statistical measure. Verlander’s only edge -- and it’s not insignificant -- is in innings pitched.

Kershaw, who missed five weeks early in the season due to an inflamed back muscle, is at 185 1/3 innings with two starts left, and figures to barely clear 200. Verlander worked 251 innings in ’11 -- and that actually is the lowest total ever by a starting pitcher who won MVP.

Proponents of Kershaw contend he has been so good that he is vastly superior to any other candidate even with his relatively low innings total. Kershaw’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which is second only to Mike Trout’s in both the Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs versions, would support that position.

I don’t buy the argument that Kershaw, by facing 693 batters, somehow is on a comparable playing field with a position player such as Stanton, who has made 638 plate appearances. Kershaw has played in 25 games and Stanton 145, with Stanton contributing far more in baserunning and defense. If we’re basing this on participation, then a catcher should win every year.

Another lazy argument is the contention that it’s OK to choose a starting pitcher during a year in which no position player separates. First of all, the season is not yet over. Second, if Kershaw was having a down year (impossible to imagine, I know), few of us would be saying, “Oh, this is a terrible crop of MVP candidates.” No, this crop actually is pretty good.

The one pro-Kershaw argument I do like -- the one I recall making for Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000 -- is that a dominant starting pitcher affects three games out of five. Kershaw averages more than 7 1/3 innings per start. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly can empty his bullpen the day before Kershaw pitches and manage a fully rested group the day after.

Still, it hardly would be an injustice if Kershaw won only the Cy Young, and the voters hardly would be idiots if they chose someone else. Martinez in 2000 had a ERA-plus of 291, the second-highest of all time. He finished fifth in the MVP voting. In ’99 Martinez had an ERA-plus of 243 and finished second. Greg Maddux also holds two of the 10 highest ERA-plus figures ever and never won an MVP.

Kershaw is a strong candidate. He isn’t the only candidate. I look forward to ranking my top 10 when the regular season is over and revealing my complete ballot after the award is announced in November.

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