Ken Rosenthal weighs in on MVP fatigue, Pitching prospect debuts

00:00:05
Speaker 1: The Inside Scoop is Hard Today by MLB Rivals. More on that later. Let's go right now to FT senior insider Ken Rosenthal and continue this discussion. Awesome night for Kyle Schwarber, Ken, but let's dive into the article and what you wrote about related to Kyle Schwarber and really Kyle Riley versus Aaron Judge and sho Hey Otani.

00:00:25
Speaker 2: The point of what I wrote is simply this that whoever is the best should win. Now, it seems like a simple concept, but human nature being what it is, my suspicion is at least some writers will be looking for a new flavor of the month and that should not be in any way a factor in this voting. Now, I know, Shohey Otani has won three of the last four MBPS, three of the last four years, Judge two of the last three. The year Otani didn't win in this four year span was the year Judge hit sixty two home runs and edged him. Or actually, wasn't that even close? So yeah, I'm sure everybody would like, in a perfect world, let's see some new faces, but that doesn't dictate what a voter should do. What dictates what a voter should do is the actual on field performance of all of the players involved. Now, if Raley and Schwarver are deserving, yes they're the MVPs. But if Judge and Otani are deserving, then they're the MVPs. I don't have any preference. I don't care one way or the other. All I want to see is that we do this right. Because I don't want and I should have included this in the column I forgot. I don't want us to look back in twenty years and have people say, what the hell are the writers thinking? We have done these kinds of things with other rewards that we've made mistakes. We're not perfect, obviously, and that's my fear that someone will get shafted here simply because I'm tired of voting for Aaron Judge. Not cool, not a way to go.

00:01:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I agree with you one thousand percent. I think you're one hundred percent right. Whoever deserves to be the MVP deserves, no matter how many times they've gotten it. Now, my question to you, as a writer broadcaster guy's been around baseball a long time, what is a certain criteria or what do you just look for for an MVP like I went over some numbers just now about RBI's home runs average. Is certain things that maybe I would look for. I'm not necessarily a big guy on war. You know, people have different quirks about what they're looking for, Like is there certain criteria that you specifically this guy has to lead in this category or it's a.

00:02:32
Speaker 4: Problem for me.

00:02:34
Speaker 2: There actually are criteria for the MVP voting, But in the end, Todd, it comes down to subjectivity. The criteria is like strength of offense and defense, character, the kind of thing you can vote however the heck you want. And part of the criteria as well is you can win multiple times. All these kinds of vague things. What I look at generally are the leading offensive and defensive metrics. But in this case with cal Raally, I don't believe the defensive metrics necessarily apply because I don't believe they will capture his full value. Now, last year he won the Platinum Glove as the best defensive player in the American League, the single best. Some of his metrics this year aren't as good, but not all of them were brilliant last year. So he is that guy behind the plate. There's no question that he brings incredible value at the game's most important position, and I'm not going to go by his WAR rating because I don't trust the defensive metrics again to get it right with him. So while I might look at WAR in certain cases, it's tough when you're dealing with guys at different positions because there are different values assigned.

00:03:44
Speaker 3: Now.

00:03:44
Speaker 2: I know WAR kind of covers that to some degree, but for instance, Bobby Witt versus Aaron Judge last year, the shortstops more valuable. Now, Judge had this incredible offensive year, one of the greatest offensive years by a right handed hitter ever. Wits the MVP every other year, but he wasn't last year. So I kind of take a look at everything, and I don't particularly value one stat over another, but I kind of look at the whole stew and try to figure it out as best I can.

00:04:14
Speaker 5: Does a team need to make the playoffs? Is that hard? Is that hard to not cook that into Ken Rosenthal's war theory or Ken Rosenthal's MVP theory.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: Eric, It is my preference. I always prefer a guy to be playing for a postseason qualifier or contender, simply because, in my view, the pressure of the games that player is playing in September is different than the pressure that a player from a non contender is facing. And there are some people who disagree with that. Every major league game is important, every major league game has pressure, But to me, there is an elevated set of circumstances when you're competing for the postseason. So yes, that matters. Now in the cases of the four players we're discussing here, Schwarber, Judge, and Otani, they're all playing for contenders, so it's really not a decided fact siding factor one way or the other. And if for some reason the Mariners don't make the postseason, well maybe it's because caw Rawley struggled down the stretch. That certainly comes into play. But I expect all of these teams to indeed be appearing in October.

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00:06:22
Speaker 5: Can you rank And I know it's tough because you have to like think about all of the other four home run games that you've seen, but Schwarber's for home run game last night? Can you rank it as far as like how impressive it is? Because they're all impressive. It's only been twenty one in major League history. But had he hit the fifth one against Vdal Bruhan, how much visceral hate there would have been. I would have been super excited, But I was halfway through my drive to Boston and I'm thinking, wait a minute, he had If he had hit that home run, there'd been so many haters who would have been like, no, wipe it out the books. Position player. You know, this guy from the eighties and nineties would have tweeted, it doesn't count, but can you can you kind of hit on that a little bit?

00:07:07
Speaker 2: Well, as we saw, it's not so easy to even hit a home run off with a Bruhan. So yes, you're right, Eric, that discussion would have taken place, there's no question, and it would have been heated. But if he had hit five man, then he's hitting five and it wouldn't have mattered to me. It would have been the greatest home run night in Major League history, no asterisks, no qualifiers. Now, as far as the greatest four home run games, I don't know. The only one I saw in person was Josh Hamilton's in Baltimore, and that was incredible. It was a sight to behold. But my goodness, last night, as we're seeing the highlights here certainly fit the same description. As you said, Eric, they're all great and I don't even know necessarily to distinguish one from the other. But if he had hit the fifth, that would have been distinguishing.

00:07:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's his Kryptoniamy.

00:07:56
Speaker 1: He joked about him he doesn't like facingosition players. Hey, it's a soft tossing player, usually on the mound in that case, so you'll have less to work with Anyway. Let's get to what I think is really special about today. We have more debuts on the way from young pitching phenom prospects in the minor leagues that we didn't expect to be here at this point. And Ken, for me, it's not just the fact that Peyton Toley, who you reported on yesterday, making the start tonight for Boston and Jonah Tong making his debut for the Mets tonight. It's not just that they get called up earlier than anticipated. It's that if they perform, they might shine and be stars of October in their rookie season.

00:08:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Scott, and we're seeing that with Nolan McLain. He is with the Mets. He just came up. He's ad three starts. They've been brilliant. He could be a critical part of the October equation. It's probably unrealistic to expect Peyton Toley and Jonah Tong to be as good as mclan has been. It would be almost impossible to be that good. But there is a lot of excitement with these particular matchups tonight. Obviously, with Totally debuting at Fenway against Paul Skins, that's a whole another layer to it. And both of these guys as well, I should mention this have terrific backstories, and in Totally's case, Chris Costillo of Masslive dot com wrote about him a couple of weeks ago. I think he lost his mom while he was in college, and he's kind of pitching for her, and he supposedly is this really good guy gregarious and his mom was the same way. So I encourage people to read Chris's story, and also Ian O'Connor today in The Athletic gets into Tongue and how he was not a guy that people thought was going to be this and yet here he is a guy who grew up in Toronto, bears somewhat of a physical resemblance to Linsingam and looks like Linsingham. On the mound, there's no other Tim Lindseam. I'm not drawing a comparison, but there is some parallel there. So I'm really excited for tonight for both these guys, and it should be pretty cool no matter how it turns out.

00:10:04
Speaker 1: Is there any bigger picture that we can learn from what's going on right now? Ken, or do you remember seeing something like this in the past. I bring it up because I'm wondering if teams are saying, hey, let's not waste bullets in the minors if we think there's a chance they can help in the majors and we have a need. We see prospects sometimes getting the fast track more than ever.

00:10:23
Speaker 2: Anyway, that's true, and I would throw the Mis into this category as well. He came up this year relatively late, and teams are looking to their top pitching prospects for perhaps more immediate help than in the past. Now, obviously, it takes a certain kind of picture to be able to make this jump totally. It was a twenty twenty four draft pick. For heaven's sake, this is his first pro season. He's gone from High A to Double A to Triple A and now to the majors. That is unheard of pretty much. So I don't know that it's necessarily something we're going to see much of in the future, but it certainly is lining up for these guys. And Scott, you're right. Teams definitely now are more willing than in the past to jump pitchers and even position players, certainly position players more quickly than they have before.

00:11:15
Speaker 5: Is that a Is that a credit to development in the minor leagues? Is that a credit to the fact that teams just don't want to pay veteran guys because they don't have the same stuff. Because history says guys don't bounce from the minor leagues of the big leagues in less than a year unless you're like Dave Winfield, John Olarude like like, there's like a very very small portion and we're seeing too many of those guys right now, Like a third of the Angels team barely spend any time in the minor league. So teams are doing this, what is the what's the precipice of it's what's the reasoning for them to do it?

00:11:56
Speaker 2: In patience and the desire to get the most talented players to the big leagues as quickly as possible. And I wonder too they're paying these guys big bonuses, the highest draft picks, right, whatever the number might be, Well, you want to return on that investment, I guess as quickly as possible. But it seems to me that with pitching, it stems from the number of pitchers teams have to go through each season to get through a season because of the increased rate of injury. And that is really what is a driver here. And yes, impatience too. All of that and all of what you said are actually figures into it. I would think salary figures into it as well. Sure, But to me, the starting point is the way teams run through pitchers today, which is just unprecedented in the game's history.

00:12:50
Speaker 3: I want to skip a little bit over here to the Yankees. You got me, yep, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox all in the pennant race here. I couldn't be more excited, if you want the truth, Understandably, all three of these teams have a good chance. The Blue Jays are in first place. How do you see this shaking up with a little bit over a month left to play?

00:13:15
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we talked about the excitement regarding totally and tongue tonight. But we've got a great series coming up. The two best teams in baseball, the Brewers and Blue Jays, are meeting this weekend. I still see the Blue Jays hanging on. I think they have enough of a cushion. The addition of Bieber. If he's as good as he was in his first start, and all the credit to him for doing what he's done coming off Tommy John, then I think certainly the Blue Jays are going to be the leading team in that division. Now beyond that, who knows where the Yankees are. They are great against the Nationals, they are not so great against teams that are better. The Red Sox are coming on, and the Red Sox are a legitimate team, But we'll just have to see how they're back of the rotation hole up for the month of September. Guys, I gotta run go for it, Ken, appreciate you all right, I talked to you, elder guys.

00:14:07
Speaker 4: Okay, thanks Ken,