Regular Season Awards: Staff Voting

What follows is almost certainly not Sussman's real rationale, but it's a rationale that parallel-universe Sussman might have had.

Sussman's ballot was a critique of the dialogue surrounding the MVP ballot. The current dialogue prefers hitters to pitchers because they're on the field more. But - but! - this is an age where even starters are relatively better at preventing runs than in the past, an age in which hitters are less effective than in the past. So, clearly, SOME pitcher somewhere should be recognized as player of the year for their exemplary efforts in ruining baseball.

Which AL pitcher? Sure, you could say Felix or Kluber for the value they added to their team, but here's where Sussman's acidic wit comes into play. The current dialogue surrounding the position player/pitcher selection is flawed because it privileges playing time over value added. To critique this, Sussman selected Price, the pitcher who threw more innings than any other major-leaguer, as the Player of the Year (the analogue for MVP). Yet the fact that Sussman didn't recognize him for Pitcher of the Year establishes this award as a truth-teller, which states that while Price did pitch more innings than anyone else, he was still less valuable in terms of actual value added to the team. In doing so, he clearly demonstrates the flaws in the existing dialogue of 'this player must be on the field to be valuable.

This sets up a parallel with Greek Drama, in which the Player of the Year rhetoric is represented by the foolish myopia of mortals, when the Deus ex Machina, the Pitcher of the Year voting, descends to speak divine truths to the people and correct them their errors. It is a parallel that is both primally compelling and totally summoned from thin air.

What you have read is Sussman's fictional rationale for his voting.