Nick Selbe doesn't know what he's talking about, Pt. I

This again. 

Almost as soon as Aaron Judge had belted his record-setting, 62nd home run of the season, Nick Selbe of Sports Illustrated was online, telling us yet again how Shohei Ohtani is "the correct choice"—his words—for 2022 MVP of the American League.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/shohei-ohtani-deserves-to-win-al-mvp-over-aaron-judge/ar-AA12AFF1?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=23d09f31820b4b3fa9b0930fba30c86b

Hey, I get it. Mr. Selbe has got to keep chumming out content for the SI website and generating clicks. I'm happy to help him to a few here because he seems to be sincere enough about his arguments. The only trouble is that they don't hold water.

First, Selbe clutters his case with assertions that are extraneous or misleading, or that outright contradict the point he is trying to make.

He tells us, for instance, that Ohtani was "the fastest runner from home to first in the league" this year—a fact that only makes his .273 batting average and his dismal, 11 steals in 20 attempts all the more difficult to excuse.  

Selbe also informs us that Ohtani is "the first player ever to qualify for [the lead] in both batting and pitching statistical categories," though "[Babe] Ruth came close twice," in 1918 and 1919.

Left unmentioned is the fact that both of those Ruth seasons were truncated by World War I and its aftermath. Ruth's Red Sox played just 126 games in 1918 and 140 games in 1919.  

But Selbe's main case for Ohtani being the AL MVP rests on two main points. These are:

Selbe thinks the MVP Award should be what he says it should be.

"In my view," he tells us, "the MVP Award—which has a definition left intentionally ambiguous, and, to me, puts an unnecessary strain on voters to draw arbitrary lines in the sand—is meant to go to the best individual player. The best player is the most valuable, simply by being the best. Holding the Angels' ineptitude against Ohtani is an unfair demerit, though there are certainly voters who feel that Judge's production came under more pressure than Ohtani's by virtue of his team's place in the standings, and thus is more impressive. On that front, there might be nothing more to say other than, 'Agree to disagree.'"

No. Agree to agree that Nick Selbe has made up his own definition for an award that is over a hundred years old.

As Selbe himself admits, the MVP has always had those "ambiguous" definitions, and frequently it has not gone to the "best player." In 1937, for instance, Charlie Gehringer won over Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig; in 1947, DiMaggio won over Ted Williams; in 1965 Zoilo Versalles won over a cast of hundreds, etc. 

You can probably find a good 50-100 examples, taking both leagues into account, in which "the best player" has not been the MVP. And there's some merit to having things this way.

Judge did play brilliantly in carrying along a stumbling Yankees team and leading it to a division title, he did it by playing a terrific game in the field and on the bases, as well as the plate; and he did it despite a lineup that fell to pieces around him, due to injuries and horrific slumps.

Ohtani, on the other hand, did not play a meaningful game after his Angels endured a 14-game losing streak from May 25-June 8—a streak, incidentally, which he was unable to break in his two (pay attention to that number)! starts over that time. The rest of the season, he was basically playing exhibition games—and hitting in a lineup that included the great Mike Trout, an exponentially better hitter than anyone Judge was playing with.

So, should playing under the intense pressure of a pennant race, and the added scrutiny afforded by a record chase, and without much of a supporting cast, count more than playing mostly meaningless game with an all-time great batting ahead of or behind you in the lineup?

Uh, yeah.

But hey, no need for Mr. Selbe or other MVP voters to "strain" themselves. If you insist on living by statistics, be willing to die by them.

Judge's combined WAR this year was 10.4, compared to 7.9 for Ohtani, even counting his pitching. Judge's OPS was 1.111, compared to Ohtani's .875. Nuf ced.

So what does Shohei Ohtani do better than Judge, other than to rock a fashion shoot?

Pitch, of course, and the second argument that Selbe and company rely—and fail—on:

What Shohei Ohtani did this year and last has never been done before.

As previously noted ad nauseam, this argument relies mostly on smoke and mirrors. 

In 1918 and 1919, Babe Ruth not only cemented his standing as the best lefthanded pitcher in baseball—and set a consecutive, scoreless-inning pitching streak in the World Series that last for 43 years—and played the outfield and first base as well—and led the AL in home runs both years—and set a baseball record for home runs in one (shortened) season, a recored that he would break repeatedly in the years ahead...but also changed the entire nature of how the game was played.

This compares to a Shohei Ohtani who still has never pitched a complete game, much less a shutout, in the regular season, and never had so much as a chance at any fielding position other than pitcher.

But fine. Let's concede that, technically speaking, Selbe is right about the uniqueness of Ohtani's accomplishments, when it comes to numbers of starts and at-bats in the same season.

But to say that Shohei Ohtani has done what no other major-league player has ever done, is to say only that no other player was ever ALLOWED to do what he did. 

To say it yet again: Shohei Ohtani is a designated hitter who pitches once a week.  (Hence his only starting twice, even during his team's 14-game losing streak.)

The DH didn't exist until 1973. Starters were supposed to complete most of their games until sometime in the 1970s or '80s. Starters were supposed to pitch every 4-5 days, until...Shohei Ohtani. (Something, again, that doesn't matter that much for Ohtani because his team is never in contention.)

Really, Shohei is a remarkable player, but someone who's career is made possible only by recent alterations in the game. To insist that his accomplishments are unique in any meaningful way—or that they should override every other accomplishment by every other player in the game, every year—is, to be polite, malarkey.