From the Daily Sports Online column / デイリースポーツオンラインの連載コラムから
All-star voting is well under way in NPB, and a lot of our Hanshin Tigers are currently sitting in first place at their respective positions. Voting booths are open until June 18, so head here for a guide, and vote daily to ensure our guys are on the Central League roster for the festivities on July 19-20 in Nagoya and Hiroshima! (That’s right – if you are new to Japanese baseball, not only are there fewer teams than there are in MLB, but they play two all-star games – and it used to be three!)
As baseball fans, we like debating everything under the sun, do we not? Who is the better player, A or B? How can we properly measure greatness? Traditional metrics like batting average, home runs, and RBIs seem to have been deemed completely antiquated and are outright rejected by the new generation. Even some relatively new stats like WAR have been thrown under the bus in favor of more “accurate” statistics. A lot of fans argue that their personal interpretation of the numbers is superior to that of the next person, because X, Y, and Z. But are we not all simply looking at the same masterfully painted art from a slightly different angle? Is there not room for everyone to be “right”? At the end of the day, does it really matter?
Some argue that people who vote for their favorite players to play in the all-star game, regardless of 2023 slumps or injuries, is foolish, and that fans like that are the reason the all-star game is a joke. “It’s not a popularity contest,” they say. “How can you possibly ignore the ridiculous start that ___ has had? Are you KIDDING me?” they say. To which I reply, No, it is a popularity contest. That is the exact purpose of the all-star game. It is played solely for the fans. Literally, hundreds of thousands of people are voting, and the basic premise is this: if you could watch your dream game, what would it look like? Who would take the field on both sides? You do not need logic when crafting your dream scenario. If you want to vote for a player who has struggled all year to this point, that’s fine. Ignoring a particular player’s hot start in favor of your hometown talent is not a heinous crime.
Look at it this way. NPB all-star voting opened on May 19, at roughly the 35-game stage of the year. The polls close on June 18, when approximately 60 games will have been played. And the game itself comes a month after that, around the 85-game point. So if you vote based on what someone has done for the first 35 games, but his hot start fades in the next 50 games (which is quite plausible, given the hot-and-cold nature of individuals’ play), then you’ve put a guy in the game who, in mid-July, has settled back into the middle of the pack. “Yeah but what do you base voting on, then?” That’s what I’m saying. Vote for the players you LIKE, and if you like the guy who started red-hot, great. If you like someone else, great. Both ways of casting votes are acceptable.
When it comes to MVP voting, I also raise an eyebrow at pundits who think their way is the only way. MLB does not clearly define what the Most Valuable Player is, beyond “who has contributed the most to the success of the player’s team.” Some say that if his team does not make the postseason, then how can he be considered valuable? The MVP should (or MUST) be a player on a potential champion! This tends to be the case in NPB, with the odd exception being made for a historic season, like 1964. That year, Sadaharu Oh’s record-establishing 55 home runs caused voters to ignore his Yomiuri Giants’ 3rd-place finish. Meanwhile, Sawamura Award winner Gene Bacque of the pennant-winning Hanshin Tigers got overlooked. Interestingly, the late Bacque once told me that Oh apologized to him the next time the two met, and Bacque said, “That’s how they voted, and I’m more satisfied with this award than the MVP.”
My point when it comes to the MVP is this: if every “expert” is digging up different sets of data in an attempt to objectively prove their guy’s worthiness, how can we put parameters on which players they have to vote for? When it comes to value, do teams think solely of postseason appearances? Does the front office care more about championships, or revenue through regular season attendance, concessions, and merchandise sales? If you can have one without the other, most executives will probably choose the latter because it means more money in their pockets. (That seems to be Hanshin’s MO, anyways, right? Five pennants in 74 years in a six-team league. Go ahead. Try to prove me wrong.)
MLB voters seem to have a little more freedom to cast their votes for anyone they deem worthy, regardless of how that player’s team finishes in the standings. That said, one of the biggest arguments over voting for Aaron Judge over Shohei Ohtani in the 2022 American League MVP race was that the Yankees reached the post-season, while the Angels did not even come close. (For the record, I don’t think Judge did not deserve MVP or that Shohei was the only and obvious choice. I do think that basing the decision primarily on the talent surrounding that player lacks logic.) Value is in the eye of the beholder. And you can argue until you are blue in the face that an amazing player on a terrible team cannot be seen as valuable… but I strongly disagree. Blame the front office for not putting a better team around that gem of a player. Do not determine the MVP based on the roster crafted by men in suits!
So when it comes to voting, is one way of thinking better than the other? Who am I to say? I am just another guy out there sitting behind a screen trying to tell others that his way of thinking is better than anyone else’s. Ironic, I know. So just go out there and vote for whom you think is right, and enjoy the game!