Connolly's Argument and Why I Still Like Cunningham for MVP

Big-league soccer scribe Marc Connolly, writing this time for USSoccerplayers.com forwarded a useful proposal yesterday: he argues a distinction should be made between the typical Most Valuable Player (MVP) award while another is handed out for Player of the Year (P-o-t-Y? which actually takes longer to type than "Player of the Year," even allowing for proper capitalizing...where was I?).

Using Real Salt Lake's (RSL) Jeff Cunningham as his example, he expands on the point:

"Regardless, Cunningham's worth to his side has obviously been valuable. But is he the most valuable player in the league, considering his team would not make the playoffs if the season ended today? Or, in other words, if you lined all the players up in the league and could pick one to go into the playoffs with based on this season's performances alone, would you take Cunningham?"

"My answers are: No and No."

As much as I appreciate the distinction Connolly's seeks to make - and he even makes fine arguments for another pair of candidates, DC United's Christian Gomez and Chivas USA's Ante Razov - I'm not sold on his methods for measuring. For one, I don't think overall team success needs consideration in determining most valuable player status. As I see it, the word means what it does: which player was most valuable to his team for the duration of the season in question? Sure, Gomez is a hell of a player (and a stronger candidate to boot), but he's also working with a better supporting cast than Cunningham. As for Razov, Connolly argues for intangibles such as his leadership qualities in the Chivas locker room.

But, as much as both players are major contributors to their clubs, I bumped into an absolutely crazy statistic (here) that gets fairly directly as what Cunningham means for RSL:

"[Cunningham's] involvement in 69.4 percent of RSL's goals is on pace to set a league record."

69.4 percent. That's one hell of a number for a typically stats-shy sport like soccer. On a more direct level, Cunningham's scored 15 of RSL's 36 goals this season. Even if Cunningham hasn't yet led his team to the post-season promised land, could RSL even entertain the concept without Cunningham's contribution? My answer is: no. That's why he's a good candidate for MVP.

For all that, Connolly's fundamental proposal, that's a pretty sound idea. The player who enjoys the best season and the player who means most to their team aren't always going to be the same.