Jimmy Rollins deserved Major League Baseball's 2007 NL MVP award.

I agree with everything my opponent said about the nature of the MVP award. It is supposed to be given to the most outstanding player. I will now refute my arguments and then provide my own, showing why Rollins was not the NL's most outstanding player in 2007. "On a statistical level, he was likely the most effective offensive player in the National League." I believe that he wasn't particularly close at all. "He led the league in games played, at bats" Whether this is a good thing depends on his rate stats (AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, etc.) Generally, of course, it's good for a player to play more and appear more in games, so this looks good for Rollins. "runs" This is a stat fans and analysts use often to show a player's offensive prowess, but in reality, it shows nothing of how good a player is. A player scores a run when he crosses home plate. However, the creation of a run depends on multiple hitters. The only time Rollins will score a run completely on his own merit is when he hits a home run. Thus, runs are an extremely team-dependent stat. If one player gets on base every single time he comes to the plate, but his teammates always make outs, that player will never get a run, even though he clearly does a fantastic job at what he's supposed to do. On the other hand, if another player gets on base 1 out of 10 times, which is a horrible rate, but his teammates are incredible and always drive him in, he'll get 1 run every 10 ABs, and over the course of the season, end up with possibly well over 50. The first player had zero runs to the second player's well over 50, but the first player was clearly far, far superior. While these examples are extremes, they show why runs can be a misleading stat. "triples, was second in extra base hits and tied for second in hits, and took 5th place in stolen bases" These are nice, but it would be a lot better to simply look at Rollins's SLG, which will take into account all extra-base hits. One reason why Rollins's leads in so many counting categories is because he played so much. It would be a lot more effective to look at his total ABs, PAs, and Games Played, and then to look at his rate stats. Hits are a bad stat, because they essentially treat singles the same as home runs. Clearly, however, a single is far less valuable than a home run. Also, while stolen bases are nice, they simply aren't that great for creating runs. For a player to even contribute, overall, with base-stealing ability, he must steal at a rate above about 75%, and even then, he will not contribute much value with this aspect of his game. [1] "versatility of his statistics [sic, sort of] in many areas allowed him to join the 30-30 and 20-20-20-20 clubs [3]" These 30-30 and 20-20-20-20 clubs are somewhat arbitrary. Assume one player has 50 HR, 10 3B, 15 2B, and 10 SB. He isn't a member of either of these "clubs." If another player, however, has 20 HR, 20 3B, 20 2B, and 20 SB, he is suddenly a member of this "club" and people might think he's better than the first player. However, the first player had 80 more total bases (TB) with only 10 fewer steals. 80 more total bases, over the course of a season in which a player gets about 560 ABs, results in an almost .150 difference in SLG, which is incredibly significant. "Rollins was awarded a silver slugger, for the best performance by an NL shortstop that year[6]. He was also excellent defensively, winning the NL's Gold Glove for shortstop [7], and maintaining a .985 fielding percentage over 1441.1 innings [8]." These two awards, the Silver Slugger and Gold Glove, are completely subjective and voted on by the managers and coaches of MLB teams. There is no way these managers and coaches see players enough, or even have close to enough time/interest in studying how these players have actually done–therefore, the awards are often given based on reputation or other factors which are irrelevant to what the award is supposed to stand for. Plus, citing these is really an appeal-to-authority, as they are not based upon facts at all but rather the opinions of (often misinformed) individuals. Also, fielding percentage (FPCT) is really a useless statistic. Not only are errors also decided subjectively, by official scorers, but the stat doesn't take range into account. If a shortstop gets to tons of balls because of his athleticism and superb range, and makes an occasional error, isn't he better than a shortstop who never gets to any ball other than one that is right at him, but doesn't make any errors? Yes, he is. There were many players who were better than Jimmy Rollins, but for this debate, I need only provide one. Here are some of David Wright's statistics from the 2007 season [2]: .325 AVG/.416 OBP/.546 SLG/141 OPS+ in 711 PAs, and a RC/G of 9.0. Jimmy Rollins's [3]: .296/.344/.531/118 in 778 PAs and a RC/G of 6.9. To put it quite simply, David Wright mauls Jimmy Rollins in these offensive categories. It isn't even close to being a competition. Jimmy Rollins's only potential big advantage is that he's a shortstop and David Wright is a third baseman, and shortstop is a more premium defensive position, but really, defensive positioning between shortstop and third base cannot make up for a 23 point difference in OPS+ and a 2.1 difference in RC/G. On the basis of David Wright's extreme superiority to Jimmy Rollins offensively, which cannot be outweighed by 50 PAs of playing time and defensive positioning, David Wright deserved the 2007 NL MVP award over Jimmy Rollins. I have linked to stats describing various stats I have used in this debate below. [1] Baseball Between The Numbers (a book. If you want a more detailed citation, I can give one.) [2]http://www.baseball-reference.com... [3]http://www.baseball-reference.com... [4]http://www.hardballtimes.com...+ OPS+ (Adjusted On-Base Plus Slugging) [5]http://www.hardballtimes.com... PA (Plate Appearances) [6]http://www.hardballtimes.com... OBP (On-Base Percentage) [7]http://www.hardballtimes.com... SLG (Slugging Percentage) [8]http://www.hardballtimes.com... RC and RC/G (Runs Created, and Runs Created per Game) [9]http://www.hardballtimes.com... TB (Total Bases) [10]http://www.hardballtimes.com... FPCT (Fielding Percentage)