Approval Voting And The NL MVP

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 2:03 PM EDT

If you know me in real life or through my old blog, you know that I absolutely love approval voting. Instead of picking one choice out of many, you get to decide yes or no on every candidate, making the winner the player who is accepted by the most voters.

So let's attack the question of NL MVP via approval voting. I've already presented my ballot, but now it's your turn. I've listed every player getting significant MVP press and the top players by Justin's stats. I haven't listed any pitchers, not because they shouldn't qualify, but because including them would have increased the size of the list significantly and no NL pitcher is really getting any MVP press this year.

All you need to do is vote for any and all players that you would approve of being named NL MVP. That might be one player or it might be nine. Basically, you are making a choice on every player listed -- yes, he's a good choice for MVP or no, he should not be MVP. The poll closes Wednesday night. (I have a hunch how this will turn out, but I'll keep it to myself for now.)

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my prediction: Albert Pujols runs away with this poll

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 2:05 PM EDT reply actions

Which would signify in theory that Pujols is the MVP, no?

by R.J. Anderson on Sep 28, 2008 2:45 PM EDT up reply actions

well, yes

but I’m thinking that this voting format is even more conducive to Pujols’ candidacy, because even voters who can’t decide between Howard/Delgado types will approve of Pujols as well.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 3:03 PM EDT up reply actions

Score Voting

Approval Voting is the simplest form of Score Voting. That is, you’re effectively scoring each option on a 0-1 scale. You get vastly more representative results (as objectively measured via Bayesian regret calculations) if you increase that range to 1-5 or 0-10 for instance.

So how about a second post where we have a ratings scale for the options. There’s a good chance you’ll see a different (probably better) result.

http://scorevoting.net/UniqBest.html
http://scorevoting.net/ShExpRes.html

by brokenladder on Sep 28, 2008 3:57 PM EDT reply actions

how does the potential for individual voters to manipulate a 1-10 score vote compare to that of a 0-1 system?

The 1-10 system would be interesting, but I don’t know of any quick voting javascript that will handle it, and I don’t have the desire to add up ballots myself. And I bet a lot fewer people would take the time to submit a more complicated ballot like that.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 4:07 PM EDT up reply actions

Blech

Approval voting is worse than what MLB has. The problem with the MVP isn’t that the voting system is messed up (it isn’t), it’s that the voters are morons.

Borda count, which is (in limited form; obviously the writers aren’t going to rank every single player) what the MVP vote is, is a vastly better system than approval voting

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on Sep 28, 2008 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

i should have explained myself more

i’m not saying approval voting is better than a borda. i know it isn’t.

i wanted to have a reader vote, and the software available would have allowed readers to either vote for just one player or to have an approval vote. i went the approval route. i didn’t want to count ballots and i didn’t want to make people take the time to go ten deep.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on Sep 28, 2008 4:28 PM EDT up reply actions