MVP: Who wins?

[ry1220]

Who do you think was the MVP of this League? Here are four candidates in no particular order, just four deserving (or not so deserving) stars in the 1965 Pride (Sub-)League of the National Baseball League:

CF Denny Saunders, Baltimore Hounds (67-95)

G    AB   H    2B  3B HR  RBI R   BB  HP SF K   SB CS  AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS  VORP
156  618  184  30  6  39  99  92  53  2  2  99  3  2  .298  .354  .555  .909  61.2

3B Jesus Ortiz, Jacksonville Brash (95-67) (WS Champs!)

G    AB   H    2B  3B HR  RBI R   BB  HP SF K   SB CS  AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS  VORP
153  555  167  37  6  15  75  102 106 4  4  16  1  0  .301  .414  .470  .884  61.0

2B Walt Sims, New York Legends (107-55)

G    AB   H    2B  3B HR  RBI  R  BB  HP SF K   SB CS  AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS  VORP
144  541  147  25  1  37  119  86 64  6  5  147 0  3  .272  .352  .527  .879  44.5

CF Geoff Hicks, New York Legends (107-55)

G    AB   H    2B  3B HR  RBI R   BB  HP SF K   SB CS  AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS  VORP
80   243  93   12  1  28  62  76  99  3  3  37  16 8  .383  .560  .786  1.346 79.6

1965: The year of the pitcher in this league, league ERA dropped 30 points while BA went down 10. 3 starters had ERAs below 2.00, while the winningist pitcher went 25-12 in 41 starts, fanning 492!!

I know who I would vote for... I want to see what everyone thinks, and then make a comment on how the game chooses the MVP.

[DougWyatt]

Wow, seeing alot of votes for Hicks. He certainly smashed the ball around, hands down a winner against the other three .. until I noticed he only played 1/2 a year. Just doesn't feel right voting for a guy who missed so much time.

[ry1220]

Originally Posted by DougWyatt

Wow, seeing alot of votes for Hicks. He certainly smashed the ball around, hands down a winner against the other three .. until I noticed he only played 1/2 a year. Just doesn't feel right voting for a guy who missed so much time.

My thoughts exactly. I would vote for Denny Saunders in a heartbeat. However, I do not do manual award voting; this poll was merely a way to see if the AI picks the "most deserving as thought by the fans".

Apparently, it does. It picked Hicks to win his 13th (!!) MVP Award in a row. (Hicks dominates this league; truly a living legend of the NBL.)

I personally find it hard to pick Hicks here, given that he only played half the season. Hicks would have easily won this award had he enough at bats to qualify for the hitting title. Does the AI take games played (AB) into account when determining the MVP? I find, more often than not, the AI picks the player who has the highest VORP. While this is a good measure, it occasionally causes situations like this, where IMO, Hicks didn't really deserve this one.

Heck, maybe Reputation has a role as well. I figure in the MLB if someone won 12 straight MVP Awards, they'd keep giving them to him until he retired or went belly-up. And it's not as if Hicks forgot how to play. In his shortened season, he still devoured opponent's pitching.

[Jeffy25]

Originally Posted by DougWyatt

Wow, seeing alot of votes for Hicks. He certainly smashed the ball around, hands down a winner against the other three .. until I noticed he only played 1/2 a year. Just doesn't feel right voting for a guy who missed so much time.

Wow, I voted for Hicks but didn't see that until you pointed that out.

[HerbD]

I believe the game uses VORP as it's main stat when determining award winners. Hicks blew the others away with his VORP even though he only played half a season.

[jbergey22]

None of the candidates really stood out to me.


Hicks was a no brainer if he had played more games. Since the 3 other candidates were so close I chose Ortiz over Saunders because of the record. With that said Ortiz has nothing earth shattering about his numbers so either 1 or 3 would have great cases as well.

PS That Hicks fella is amazing. If he had the same stats and played in 140 games I would have voted for him. I just dont feel right about voting for someone that played around half of the teams games.

You should rename your MVP award to the Geoff Hicks award. I think he deserves it

[gpm22]

What was the Legends' record without Hicks in the lineup?

[ry1220]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

You should rename your MVP award to the Geoff Hicks award. I think he deserves it

He definitely does. The day he retires, is the day the MVP Award is renamed the Geoff Hicks Award.

Sadly, he's been regressing in the few years I've simmed further since posting. This looks like it was his last MVP Award. Now at 35, he's missed half of the next three years, and has slowly come to a halt around 700 homers, when I had him on pace to easily break 800. Ah, aging.

Originally Posted by gpm22

What was the Legends' record without Hicks in the lineup?

As mentioned above, I've simmed further since posting this, so I don't have this information readily available. However, I think the Legends' record isn't changed drastically with Hicks in the lineup. The team is stacked, they have two future HoFers around Hicks in the lineup, they have Walt Sims, who is showcased above, and the pitcher mentioned in my original post, who now has 3500 Ks before his 30th birthday!