Sunday, August 16, 2015
Valuable v Outstanding
?In a war of words,and how beholden we need to be to the literal definition of the word (instead of just being able to usurp its ubiquity), I respond to MGL's point here:
The person has to define value.
(a) One can say it’s performance in games that the team won. Or, in corporate america, it’s who was part of the team that landed the big account.
(b) One can say it’s performance that contributed TOWARD winning. Or in corporate america, it’s all those guys that did a great job, but their performance was unaffected by the last guy who couldn’t close the deal.
(c) One can say it’s performance in a vaccum, that given the right circumstances, wins would have followed that performance. Or in corporate america, it’s who does a good job, period, and we’re not going to figure out how the company made 1 billion$ and how to trace it back to the 10,000 employees, as we just assume that whoever did a good job, did their share, however indirectly.
Choose your definition.
***
I agree that the name of the award itself is limiting. If we had called it “Most Outstanding Player”, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.
Indeed,the Cy Young Award itself, on the statue, at one point said “Most Outstanding Pitcher”.
But, voters want to make it more complicated, talk about pennant races, and “still be 1st place without him” and other nonsense to make the voter sound more self-important.
In 10 years, we don’t want to know that adding Shannon Stewart in the middle of the season coincided (as in coincidence) with a playoff run so he can be justified in finishing in the top 5 in MVP. We don’t want to be embarrassed by Lamar Hoyt and other selections made in the eye of the tornado.
It’s ALREADY hard enough to figure out who was the most outstanding player. We don’t need to make it more complicated by nebulous concepts of timing of performance.
So, I basically agree with MGL’s point. I just disagree with the way people rally around the word “value”, when we should rally around the word “outstanding”, even if it’s not in the name.
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