Friday, February 09, 2007

S. Rolen, World Series MVP

This has been bothering me for a long time, and I have to get it off my chest.

David Eckstein won the World Series MVP for my Cards. Well done, good guy, glad to have him, we won, yay!

But....Scottie Rolen was clearly the MVP for that Series. Not even close.

Slugging: Rolen .737* Eckstein .500
On Base %: Rolen .476 Eckstein .391
RBI: Rolen 2 Eckstein 4*
Runs Scored: Rolen 5* Eckstein 3
OPS: Rolen 1.213* Eckstein .891
*Led team

They both played excellent defense. A push there. Neither had a stolen base.

Based on those stats, why Eckstein? He's a cute little, scrappy guy. Also, to be fair to David, he got 4 of his hits, including 2 of his doubles and 3 of his RBI, with 2 outs. Clutch, I agree. But one of Eck's doubles happened when the CF fell down on the wet turf, on an easy fly. And another glanced off the LF's glove, when the outfield was (IMHO) much too drawn in.

Not an original view, I admit (note comment, here), but I had to say it. David, well done. Scottie, way to be a class guy and keep your mouth shut. Should been you, though, Scottie.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

True, but don't forget the intangibles that do not appear in stats. Perhaps there were leadership or relationship effects that translated into increased performance from his teammates.

Mungowitz said...

But I came to my current conclusion only after watching the World Series DVD four times. Rolen had a heck of a series.

Eckstein benefitted for the ORDER of his best games. His games 4 and 5 of the Series were fantastic, no question. But Rolen had a better Series overall.

Like I said, I don't begrudge Eck the award. He led us to the championship, in those last two games.

But I want to give Scott some props. He had an amazing Series, and completely made everyone shut up about 2004.