It's Official: The Neo-Liberal Sports Media

Dustin Pedroia's recognition by the press as the American League's Most Valuable Player proves that the repugnant stench of neo-liberalism (the philosophy of the Democrats, not to be confused with Liberalism) has wafted its way into the Sports Desk. Perhaps this has happened because the stench had filled the hallways of most major newspapers in the country and just now finally broke down the door into the sports room. More likely, this is a result of downsizing in the newspaper industry that is throwing sportswriters into the same room as the news desk from which the stench emanates.

Regardless of how we got here, it is now fact that the sports media is buried in neo-liberal philosophy. Sportswriters gave the most significant award, the currency of media-player relations, to the little guy. Just as one would expect out of the President-Elect's excuse for a policy initiative, this award was given to a player smaller in stature and less productive than others upon whom this currency could have been spent. Below is a table of Adjusted *OPS+ results for a list of all AL hitters who received votes:

Player	Adj. *OPS+
Bradley	162
Teixeira	146
Mauer	145
A. Rodriguez	140
Quentin	139
Youkilis	134
Morneau	133
Kinsler	129
Hamilton	129
Pena	124
Sizemore	124
Huff	124
Guerrero	122
Ibanez	120
Pedroia	120
Cabrera	118
Longoria	114
Dye	113
Suzuki	110
Bartlett	88

Even if we discard Teixeira’s numbers since they include time with the Braves and Longoria’s numbers since he did not quite play a complete season, Pedroia still finishes low on this list. In fact, Pedroia was not even the best hitter among AL second baseman. As it turns out, the Rangers were snubbed. Even though A-Rod won the MVP playing for a lousy Rangers team in 2003, Kinsler finished well below Pedroia and Bradley did not even come close to winning the award, despite having a higher Adj. *OPS+ than Manny Ramirez.

Of course, we all love Pedroia’s feel-good story. What neo-liberal wouldn’t love a guy who brings his lunch pail to work every day and just puts his head down and works. Further, what union (or neo-liberal Democrat) wouldn’t do everything in its power to ensure that his pay matches that of his more competent peers in other industries?

Unfortunately, meaningful awards like MVP are left to be voted on by people who are largely uneducated about how to adequately assess a player’s value. On the bright side, at least this is just baseball. Could you imagine how messed up this country would be as a whole if its decisions were left to be voted on by people who have no idea how to adequately assess the economic effects of broad policy proposals but found a solution that made everyone feel good? Thank God at least that’s never happened….