Francisco Rodriguez Will Win the MVP

As Jim Caple kindly pointed out in his column on ESPN.com today, the save is the most overrated statistic in baseball. This is no secret, and we certainly didn’t need a ten page document to tell us why. Simply put, saves can be cheap. It’s rather easy to pad a closers total, which over the years has manipulated the way we view closers.

At least that’s the way it used to be. If anything, I believe that we devalue the save. If this statistic was as grossly overrated as Caple suggests, wouldn’t Lee Smith, who retired as the all-time saves leader, be in the Hall-of-Fame? Would it have taken Bruce Sutter, who revolutionized the game by inventing the splitter, 19-years to get in? I don’t think so.

No matter how we value closers of the past, it shouldn’t distort the way we perceive Francisco Rodriguez’s current assault on the record books, and certainly not his MVP candidacy.

Let’s start with the obvious:

• K-Rod has successfully saved 45 of the Angels league best 70 wins.
• He’s on pace for 65, which would place him eight ahead of Bobby Thigpen’s single-season record of 57.
• The Angels lack any other MVP-caliber player.

His saves are legit, unlike many closers he actually pitches in close games, in large part because the Angels can’t score runs (they currently rank eighth in the AL). Fifteen of his saves have come in one-run games, and only 8 occurred in games the Angels have won by more than two runs. He’s also durable. 17 times he’s saved games on back-to-back days, which is the exact kind of thing that allows a team to go on a run and separate from the pack.

Remember, it’s the most valuable player, not the most talented. If that were the case, Josh Hamilton, what with his stats and feel good story, would definitely be the front-runner, but as we all know, if you don’t get into the playoffs, then you don’t win the MVP. It’s that simple.

Over the last few weeks many people have been quick to point out that Rodriguez may not even be the best closer in the AL, and you know what they’re right. Joakim Soria (94%), Joe Nathan (94%), and Mariano Rivera (100%) all have better save percentages than Rodriguez’s 92.

He’s also walked more batters than any other closer in the AL. In fact, one could argue that Rodriguez is only sitting on history’s doorstep because of the number of save opportunities he’s had (49, 13 more than any other pitcher in baseball).

But none of that matters in an MVP debate. If Soria, Rivera, or Nathan were closing games for the Angels this season then I’d probably be writing about them right now, but they don’t. So it’s a a moot point. Rodriguez happens to be the best player on the best team in baseball, so he automatically becomes the front runner for the award.

Look, the truth is, his resume is softer than Snuggles, but look around the American League, who else is there? What one player jumps out at you from Tampa Bay? Chicago? Boston? Minnesota? The only other candidates are Evan Longoria, who is a rookie, and Carlos Quentin of the White Sox, who could be the sleeper in all this talk. The Red Sox have gotten by largely by committee, as have the Twins. The only true headliner on a winning team, Manny Ramirez, has departed to the West Coast.

So, by default, it looks like Francisco Rodriguez is going to be your 2008 AL MVP. I don’t think that Rodriguez should win the MVP, but with the way voting is, along with a serious drought in star power among the contending teams, it looks like it’s going to happen. You never know, though. Last year Jimmy Rollins stole it after taking the Phillies on a run in September, so it’s possible something like that could happen this year in the AL.  Then again, the right man got snubbed in that voting process too.  Rodriguez isn’t the worst candidate, if he breaks the saves record I could see where there would be some justification, but a closer? I hated it when Eric Gagne won the Cy Young.

Maybe the save is both overrated and underrated.