The voters had pizza last week.

Is, ought, whatever. The article is called “Why Santana isn't the AL MVP,” but Jayson Stark means “Santana will not win the AL MVP.”

Our buddy, Buster Olney, has presented an eloquent MVP case for Santana over the last couple of weeks.

I'm no Buster-lover, but at least he had the courtesy to argue that Santana has been, during the 2006 baseball season, the player of most value to his team. It's a quick trip from there to the conclusion that he should win the MVP.

Now it's time for The Other Side of that Case:

Clever. Did you notice the capitalization? That's clever. Jayson Stark is clever. Let's look at the first set of arguments Mr. Stark marshals:

Starting pitchers won three of the first eight MVP awards handed out by the Baseball Writers Association. But in the last 60 years, things have changed just a mite.
We're now up to 121 MVP trophies handed out in that time. Starting pitchers have won seven of them.

Interesting. Still I am wondering: has Johan Santana been the player most valuable to his team, the Minnesota Twins, in the 2006 baseball season? I began to read your article under the assumption you would answer this question.

But in the division-play era -- which has lasted 38 seasons -- the trend is so obvious, even your great-grandma could see the writing on this wall and not even need her reading glasses.

Funny. Jayson Stark is funny. Clever and funny. Also he has an excellent sense of when an argument is relevant to a conclusion.

Of the 75 MVP awards in this era, starting pitchers have won exactly two more than beer vendors, mascots and even resin bags. Vida Blue (1971) and Roger Clemens (1986) are the only starters since 1969 to win an MVP. And since Clemens won, his fellow starters are 0 for two decades.

Also he does not smell bad.

But it says, right there on the instructions to voters, that "all players are eligible for MVP, and that includes pitchers and designated hitters." So because we take that into consideration, we wouldn't say we would never favor a starting pitcher for this award.

It would just take an extraordinary season and an extraordinary set of circumstances.

Okay, so...

The pivotal question, then, is as basic as a 3-and-0 fastball: Is Santana's year extraordinary enough to convince voters to rank it above all the compelling position-player seasons on the table, from a field that includes Derek Jeter, Jermaine Dye, David Ortiz and even Santana's own teammate, Justin Morneau? Now let's look at that topic.

So you're admitting that everything you've written so far has nothing to do with the conclusion you'd like to draw. This is awesome.

2. "TRIPLE CROWN" IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR "MVP"
One big item on Santana's MVP qualification list is the surest sign that he has clearly been the very best starting pitcher in his league:

If the season ended in the next 30 seconds, he would win the prestigious "Pitcher's Triple Crown" -- by leading the league in wins, strikeouts and ERA.

Also WHIP. Also Times He Had Sex with Your Wife. Did I mention that since his first few mediocre starts Johan Santana has been OFF THE FREAKING HEEZY?

In the division-play era, six pitchers have won the Triple Crown. None of them won the MVP award. Their average finish in the MVP voting: sixth. Only Pedro Martinez (23-4 for the 1999 wild-card Red Sox) made the top three.

I THOUGHT WE AGREED WE WERE SUPPOSED TO COMPARE (WITH RESPECT TO VALUE PROVIDED TO TEAM) THE POSITION PLAYERS YOU LISTED TO SANTANA. I'll take this opportunity to point out that none of the position players are that compelling, another fact that should be part of your comparison.

But if the season ended today, Santana also would win the Quadruple Crown, since he leads the league in the fourth major category -- innings pitched. No AL pitcher has won The Quad since Hal Newhouser in 1945. And -- whaddaya know -- Newhouser did win the MVP.

What we have to remember, though, is that there weren't as many hitting megastars to compete with back then, since Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams and so many of their fellow patriots were off to war, trying to win something slightly more significant than trophies.

BOY does the end of this sentence make me hate you. Like, a lot.

So it was a really, really different era in all kinds of ways.

You're using a WWII reference to hide a bad argument. Not cool. Didn't some pitchers go to war too? Are you saying that because the overall quality of baseball dropped as players went overseas to win something more important than trophies, it was easier for pitchers to be of value to their teams? 'cause if so, U R wrong.

But we're willing to consider that parallel. Except if we do, we also have to consider the fate of the three NL quadruple-crown winners in the division-play era: Steve Carlton in 1972, Dwight Gooden in 1985 and Randy Johnson in 2002. And those three finished fifth, fourth and seventh in the MVP voting, respectively.

More irrelevant history -- great.

Bob Brenly, who managed Johnson in 2002, told us he doesn't remember any talk of the Unit as MVP back then -- even in a monstrous year (24-5, with 334 strikeouts) for a team that finished first. Of course, Curt Schilling also pitched for that club. And Brenly admits that "when I was sitting in that dugout, I didn't concern myself much with those individual awards."

What's more, a manager who doesn't give a shit about the MVP doesn't remember talk of the Unit receiving the award. You should've asked Grisha Perelman what he thinks about Johan Santana.

But maybe something like an argument is coming.

Nevertheless, Brenly says that with all due respect to Santana, "to me, an MVP is a guy who is out there doing something every day to help his team win." And we agree with every word of that quote.

Great as Santana is, he has had an impact on 32 games this year. Jeter, Dye and Morneau are going to have an impact on 150 games, give or take a few. And while that's not Santana's fault, it's also tough to compete with.

This is not quite true -- Johan often throws 7-8 innings and allows the bullpen to rest. Also, your criterion transparently makes it impossible for a pitcher to win the award.
Shouldn't you take into account the degree to which the players influenced the games? (Yes.) Did you? (No.)

3. WINNING PERCENTAGE DOESN'T EQUAL MVP
Santana's No. 1 selling point as an MVP candidate is a stat that homes right in on the heart of his "value" to his team:

When he pitches, the Twins always win.

This is a direct result of his being awesome at baseball.

Heading into his start Thursday in Boston, his team is 26-6 (.813 winning percentage) when he pitched -- and 64-55 (.538) when anyone else pitched.

Damn, that's good.

Since April 27, when Santana righted himself after an 0-3 start, those numbers get even more insane. The Twins are an off-the-charts 25-3 (.893 winning pct.) in his 28 starts since then. But we should note that their record with anyone else out there (58-46, .558) is also better than it was early on.

Like, really fucking good.

Santana is, beyond question, a huge difference maker.

You're stealing from Colbert! This is bullshit!

That's an argument any rational human should feel obliged to agree with, at least on some level

Content-free verbal masturbation, yours courtesy of Jayson Stark.

Which is why Santana at least deserves a place on every voter's ballot.

The only real issue is which place.

YES, in fact this is the very same issue which your title suggests you would have addressed by now.

But this is also an argument you can play some fun tricks with. The Tigers are playing .741 baseball (23-8) when Kenny Rogers pitches. The Cardinals are playing .667 baseball (20-10) when Chris Carpenter pitches. The Padres are playing .667 ball (14-7) when Woody Williams starts. The Phillies are an .800 team (8-2) when Randy Wolf pitches. There's also a big drop-off for all those teams when other pitchers pitch. That alone doesn't make them plausible MVP candidates.

In these cases the winning percentage is tied up with things other than the pitchers being awesome at baseball, no offense to Chris Carpenter.

Or say Santana had gotten hurt in July, but Francisco Liriano had stayed healthy all year. Until Liriano's last two starts of the year, when he wasn't himself, the Twins won nearly 80 percent of Liriano's starts, too (11-3).

If he'd kept that up the rest of the year, but Santana had gone down, would Liriano be the leading MVP candidate? And if the answer is yes, doesn't that indicate that, for at least half the season, Santana had a fellow pitcher in his rotation who was nearly as good -- and valuable -- as he was?

I find this hilarious. If someone with a different name had effectively switched roles with Santana, would he have been MVP? Isn't this the same question as whether Santana should be MVP?
It's both weird and unfair that your argument involves imagining Santana was injured. I would like to imagine that David Ortiz and Travis Hafner are OPSing .950 for the purposes of my argument that Johan Santana should be MVP.

We had the Elias Sports Bureau research two questions for us: (1) Over the last 20 years, which 10 pitchers' teams had the best record on days they pitched? And (2) over that same period, which 10 pitchers' teams had the biggest disparity in record when other pitchers pitched?

You can see those charts for yourself. But here's what we learned:

Best team record with an individual starter (1987-06, min. 25 starts)
Record Pitcher Year Team MVP finish
27-3, .900 Randy Johnson 1995 Mariners 6th*
29-5, .853 Mike Hampton 1999 Astros 21st*
22-4, .846 John Smoltz 1998 Braves No votes*
27-5, .844 Roger Clemens 2001 Yankees 8th*
25-5, .833 David Wells 1998 Yankees 16th*
29-6, .829 Bret Saberhagen 1989 Royals 8th
29-6, .829 Bob Welch 1990 A's 9th*
24-5, .828 Pedro Martinez 1999 Red Sox 2nd*
24-5, .828 Jason Schmidt 2003 Giants 22nd*
*team made playoffs | Source: Elias Sports Bureau

• Santana's 2006 season didn't even make the top 10 in the "best record" study. Which means there were at least 10 pitchers in that time whose teams had even better records when they started than Santana's team does this year. So that makes it tougher to consider his season "extraordinary." And of those other 10, only one (Pedro in '99) was even a factor in the MVP discussion.

• All 10 of those pitchers on the "best record" list pitched for teams that either made the playoffs or were alive until the last week of the season. Outside of Pedro, though, none of the other nine wound up higher than sixth in the MVP election (Randy Johnson's finish, for the '95 Mariners). And from there, they dropped off all the way to Not Receiving One Stinking Vote status (John Smoltz's fate, for the '98 Braves).

• We can work Santana into the top 10 by using that "Compared With Other Pitchers" list. But even using that criterion, his 2006 season still ranks only 10th. So again, we ask: Was this a season so above and beyond other great pitchers' seasons that it merits an MVP award? It's tough to conclude it was. And again, even with this slightly different list, only Pedro was a blip on the MVP screen.

Did Elias know what you were up to? Did you mention you were going to make bizarre inferences from their statistics?

Looking back through those theoretically parallel seasons, we remember the arguments for Martinez in '99 being similar to the case for Santana this year. But in reality, the pitcher whose season was closest to Santana's this year was Johnson in '95.
...

So the Unit was a man who had an even bigger impact than Santana. And he did it in a season when Ken Griffey Jr. got hurt, removing the most logical Mariners MVP candidate from the entire discussion. Yet Johnson still finished behind five players in the MVP vote -- including two (Edgar Martinez and Jay Buhner) on his own team.

Okay.

It was Johnson -- whose team went 15-1 in his last 16 starts -- who pitched them back. But when the MVP debate began, "I never heard his name, to be honest with you," McLaren said.

You never heard it because Martinez hit .356 that year and Buhner mashed 40 homers. And above all, you never heard it because it sold the position players on that team short to suggest it was a pitcher who made those Mariners what they were.

So spin that scenario forward to the 2006 Twins and answer us this: Why isn't Joe Mauer this team's Edgar Martinez? Why isn't Morneau their Jay Buhner?

Pressing rewind on an argument is not the same as winning it.

And why haven't more people noticed that Morneau has driven in more runs (125) than any Twin in history whose name wasn't Killebrew? Why haven't more people noticed that, since June 8, Morneau has hit .374, and knocked in as many runs as Ryan Howard (87 -- tied for the most in baseball)?

I think people have noticed, but RsBI is a pretty stupid statistic. I AM NOT SURPRISED IT IS THE ONE TIME YOU MENTION THE POSITION PLAYERS YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DEFEND.

That, to us, is what an MVP front-runner looks like. And there isn't an ounce of disrespect to the always-spectacular, always-mesmerizing Johan Santana when we tell you what he looks like:

The Cy Young shoo-in that he is. Period.

Nor an ounce of logic. Snap!