In today's News, Tony Paul — a BBWAA writer — made the case for Justin Verlander to be voted the AL MVP this year. He also outlined the BBWAA's apparent distaste, in recent years, for pitchers (especially starters) to be voted MVP.

"The Cy Young is for pitchers and the MVP is for position players," goes the conventional wisdom. "Pitchers only pitch once every five days, but position-players are out there every game." But, consider...

• Any one hitter is one-ninth of a batting order (11%).
• Any starting pitcher is one-fifth of a rotation these days (20%).

Now, I realize there are bullpens, DHs, pinch-hitters, days off, injuries, and a host of other statistical categories I've ignored here (pitchers hitting in interleague games, position-players taking the mound, suspensions for throwing at hitters' heads, etc.). I've also completely ignored fielding, and I've assumed that the BBWAA is a fair assessor of talent; these might be big stretches. This is meant to be a crude, quick-and-dirty assessment, which it is.

I took the last three years' worth of MVP and Cy Young voting data, and considered the top five in each category in each year. (No pitcher, starter or reliever, was in the top-5 in the MVP voting from 2008 onward.) Then, I calculated what percentage of their team's plate appearances (for the MVP) or innings pitched (for the Cy) was attributable to each. All the stats are from baseball-reference, because they're fantastic.

For the MVP candidates:

2010 MVP

 
2009 MVP

 
2008 MVP

 
Now for the Cy Young candidates:

2010 Cy Young

 
2009 Cy Young

 
2008 Cy Young (all pitchers)

 
2008 Cy Young (just the starters)

I did 2008 twice because I didn't really feel like getting into the whole "is a closer worth more than a starter" sort of argument, talking about leverage factors, all that jazz... someone else can, if they like. (For this analysis, I'll ignore the relievers; but, for the record, I think they can be MVP candidates, too.) The point is that the numbers turned out a bit surprising, which is why I'm doing all this.

Is an inning pitched equivalent to a plate appearance? How important is a "stopper" in a rotation? Do voters over-value RBI and wins in these awards? I'm not sure. The moral of the story is that the whole "every fifth day" argument is bunk. Dear BBWAA voters, don't be afraid to vote for a pitcher as an MVP.