Joltin' Joe Cowley responds

So after typing up and emailing Joe Cowley a total annihilation of his "Frank Thomas carried the team on his shoulders" theory, I was curious to see Cowley's response. What would he say to clear statistical evidence that disproved almost every part of his esoteric Frank Thomas memories. I initially thought that he would probably stop reading the post after my 1st point, since he probably doesn't know what Runs Created (RC) are and if he bothered to go look it up, would see that it is a "sabermetric" stat (i.e. the baseball writer equivalent of evil Nazi propaganda). Or would he simply reply with more snide insults denigrating the use of stats and end the email by addressing me as "bro".

Cowley responded the next day with a simple one sentence email: "Who did you vote for?"

I responded to Cowley with the following email 3/17/2007 and we here @ RealBBBB await his response.

Joe,
I didn't vote for anyone for AL MVP since I'm not a member of the BBWAA. However, in the interest of fairness and discussion, I will give you what my sample ballot would have looked like with rationalization for it. My original ballot (Oct 8, 2006--available here http://realbbbb.blogspot.com/2006/10/my-al-mvp-ballot.html) looked like this

1. David Ortiz
2. Justin Morneau
3. Johan Santana
4. Travis Hafner
5. Joe Mauer
6. Frank Thomas
7. Derek Jeter
8. Jermaine Dye
9. Carlos Guillen
10. Grady Sizemore

Yes, I have Derek Jeter as #7 (even lower than you) behind Thomas. In restrospect, Jeter should probably have been higher, since statistically he did have a very very good offensive season, regardless of his batting position (#2) and the fact that he plays in a 9 All-Star lineup. If you want more rationalization for my original ballot, then you can read the above page. If I were to vote now, I would have changed it to look like the following

1. David Ortiz
2. Justin Morneau
3. Johan Santana
4. Derek Jeter
5. Travis Hafner
6. Joe Mauer
7. Frank Thomas
8. Jermaine Dye
9. Carlos Guillen
10. Grady Sizemore

My basic problems with your AL MVP ballot were twofold:

1) Frank Thomas, David Ortiz, Travis Hafner all play the exact same position (DH). Thus, we can compared them purely on offensive production. Ortiz and Hafner clearly outperformed Thomas offensively (look at any set of offensive statistics--traditional and sabermetric) and since they don't play defense, we can pretty much make a definitive decision about which players were better during 2006. Yes, it is true that Thomas's team made the playoffs while Ortiz & Hafner team's didn't. However, that is through NO FAULT of Hafner or Ortiz. Can you honestly sit there and tell me that if the A's had Ortiz or Hafner instead of Frank Thomas on their team in 2006 they would have done worse or wouldn't have done any better than they did with Thomas??

2) Jermaine Dye was not the 2nd most valuable player in the AL. He was perhaps the 2nd most valuable player on his own team. But not for his division, much less the entire American League. Dye had a good season, but people like Ortiz, Hafner, even Jeter, Grady Sizmore had better offensive seasons. And Dye isn't such an amazing RF that his fielding adds some significant value to his production (as compared to Joe Mauer or Pudge in years past). Plus, Dye had 2 All-Star level hitters in his lineup (Konerko, Thome) whereas Ortiz had 1 (Manny), Thomas had 1 (Swisher), Sizemore/Hafner had 1 (each other), and Morneau/Mauer had 1 (each other). Finally, the White Sox weren't even a playoff team. You voted for Thomas over Ortiz based on playoff status. Ok, fine. But then what is your reasoning for voting for Dye over Thomas?? Stats/offensive production?? Because if that is the case, I see no difference between the White Sox and the Red Sox seeing as how both missed the playoffs by a significant amount (5+ games). Both teams finished 3rd in their divisions and their records were separated by 4 games. So there should be no "playoff importance" added to Dye if you're not going to consider it for Ortiz. So then how do you vote for Dye ahead of Ortiz and also ahead of Thomas?

We await Joe's response...........