0 for 2 sportswriters of america.

I watched the Yankees all year and Jeter carried his team through injuries and the AROD mess. Don't get me wrong, Morneau had a fantastic year but I think Jeter did more. They talk about East Coast Bias, what about sportswriter bias against Jeter. Sportwriters continue to say that Jeter is overrated. Look at his numbers this year and how he held that team together. That is MVP stuff.

That's just laughable. I don't know if Jeter was the MVP, but Moreanu shouldn't have been in the Top 5 in the voting let alone winning the whole thing. If the MVP wasn't worthless before, it is now.

Here's the voting.

I'd love to talk to the person who put Raul Ibanez or A.J. Pierzynski on their MVP ballots. Do these folks know what it is they're supposed to be voting for?

He most likely is going to finish #2 in the voting. It is hard to say he is underrated. He had a great year, but he also had an incredible lineup around him (even with out Sheff and Matsui). Maybe the sports writers felt Morneau did more (or equal) with less protection around him. Honestly who other than Mauer really put fear into you as an opposing fan? Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett, Rondell White? I just do not know how someone can say he was robbed when there was no clear cut #1.

0 for 2? Debate Pujols v Howard all you want, but this is the only award that was flat-out wrong. The NL voting at least got the right 5 guys in the top 5.

Jeter, Mauer, Santana, hell even Ortiz and Hafner had reasonable claims in the AL. You could make the case Morneau shouldn't even have cracked the top 10.

Morneau is debatable as even a Top 10 choice. It's amazing that baseball writers continue to value RBIs as the most important statistic in baseball.

Sorry Jason, but the Yanks without Sheff and Matsui still had a lineup with eight All-Stars and several former MVP winners in it. Five of those "Scrubs" scored a hundred runs...

And as far as Jeter "leading the team through the A-Rod mess," that is an absolute joke. He hung ARod out to dry. Period.

He put up MVP numbers, and I wouldn't have complained if he won (too much) but you cannot say he was robbed. If anyone's got a beef it's Mauer who finished out of the Top 5.

Definitely a case can be made for Jeter. But to say Morneau isn't even Top 10? Ridiculous. Now that's East Coast Bias.

You guys are so clueless. Morneau didn't win this by accident. There may or may not be a Jeter bias, but I tend to think that he gets a FAVORABLE bias (see Gold Glove), regardless, Morneau is without question the MVP. Look at his team when he was hitting .260 in May and the team's record when he caught absolute fire. There is no difference. Mauer can lead the league in hitting all he wants, that team went as Morneau went.

Jeter had the Arod mess to deal with sure. Morneau had guys named Boof and Scott Baker making critical starts. Brad Radke's arm almost literally fell off, there couldn't be any older left-fielder/DH combos than Ruben Sierra and Rondell White. Tony Batista??? The Twins beat Detroit for the division on the last day of the year, none of this was thinkable without the AL MVP.

I just do not know how someone can say he was robbed when there was no clear cut #1.

You're right. Jeter wasn't a clear cut #1, and I won't cry for him. Hafner, Ortiz, Santana, and Mauer all had legit claims to the award, too. More or less, they were all equally valuable in their own ways. Taken as a whole, however, they were all robbed.

I'd love to talk to the person who put Raul Ibanez or A.J. Pierzynski on their MVP ballots. Do these folks know what it is they're supposed to be voting for?

Ibanez had a higher EqA than Morneau, by the way. Doesn't the fact they voted for Morneau already prove they don't know what they're doing?

You guys are so clueless. Morneau didn't win this by accident. There may or may not be a Jeter bias, but I tend to think that he gets a FAVORABLE bias (see Gold Glove), regardless, Morneau is without question the MVP. Look at his team when he was hitting .260 in May and the team's record when he caught absolute fire. There is no difference. Mauer can lead the league in hitting all he wants, that team went as Morneau went.

Jeter had the Arod mess to deal with sure. Morneau had guys named Boof and Scott Baker making critical starts. Brad Radke's arm almost literally fell off, there couldn't be any older left-fielder/DH combos than Ruben Sierra and Rondell White. Tony Batista??? The Twins beat Detroit for the division on the last day of the year, none of this was thinkable without the AL MVP.

sorry for posting twice. by "you guys" i meant the first two knuckleheads.

How many teams have had the MVP, Cy Young winner and Batting Champ?

As a Yankee fan, my issue isn't so much with Jeter losing (though I would have felt much better if he had lost to Mauer) but with some of the votes that appeared on the ballots, like Jeter being voted 6th on one ballot. It's time they make the votes public so the writers who pull this stuff can be called out on it.

The AL's VORP leaders:

1. Derek Jeter
2. Travis Hafner
3. David Ortiz
4. Grady Sizemore
5. Joe Mauer
6. Carlos Guillen
7. Manny Ramirez
8. Miguel Tejada
9. Jermaine Dye
10. Vladimir Guerrero
11. Jim Thome
12. Vernon Wells
13. Justin Morneau
14. Alex Rodriguez

I don't think it's a stretch at all to say Morneau is a debatable TOP 10 selection.

But to say Morneau isn't even Top 10? Ridiculous. Now that's East Coast Bias.

Top Twenty by VORP:

Jeter
Hafner
Santana
Ortiz
Sizemore
Halladay
Mauer
Guillen
Manny
Tejada
Dye
Guerrero
Thome
Wells
Wang
Morneau
A-Rod
Liriano
Matthews
Zito

I'm just saying.

I think a lot of people make good points about the ballots. What baseball-writing luminary would put Jeter outside the Top 5?

Jeter was 1st in VORP (value over replacement player) and Win Shares according to Baseball Prospectus. Simply, he meant more to his team than Mauer or Morneau in regards to wins. I think you are the clueless one Brett. Morneau had a great year but to much emphasis is put on RBI's. Lets not forget that Jeter also stole 34 bases and rarely ever gets caught. The voting should have been close as it was but I believe Jeter was the MVP this year. Period.

Jason, don't counter RBIs by using the most unimportant and overrated stat in baseball--the stolen base.

Stolen bases are worth exactly NO runs. They're exciting, they lead to runs, but it still takes one of those "overrated" RBIs to bring Jeter in from second.

If the MVP wasn't worthless before, it is now.

Oh please. It's been worthless for a long time. (see 1987 Dawson, Andre; 1991 Pendleton, Terry; 1995 Vaughn, Mo; 1996 Gonzalez, Juan; 2001 Suzuki, Ichiro.)

The Jeter being voted 6th thing is ridiculous...as far as "anti-Yankee bias" robbing the team of awards over the last 11 years...I call BS. It's hard to pick a league MVP on a team that usually has at least 5 guys in the AS game every year. I'm not saying anyone on the Yankees is necessarily expendable, and Jeter is probably the most important position player they've got...but generally speaking, one cog out of place doesn't derail the machine. So I'm not sure how anyone could argue that that team has deserved more MVP awards in the past then its received.

This year, some of the writers look like they just didn't want Jeter to win the award. And even though I would have been pissed had he won-I had Mauer, Ortiz, and even Santana above him-it's not right to vote against him just because of who he is.

Also aren't SB's valuable if the SBPCT is high enough? I thought the magic number was 75%; if you're better then that, you're helping your team. And Jeter was 87% this year...I think that does count for something.

Oh, and my first comment was operating on the assumption that writers don't pay attention to VORP and win shares...which they should, but let's be realistic...that's a long ways off.

Good point Jason. Too bad I didn't even point to RBIs as a reason Morneau deserves the MVP. I agree that Win Shares are a pretty convincing argument. I like to point out the "intangibles" that Morneau has that is also shared by Jeter with the Yankees. You may be right, does Jeter deserve a 6th place vote? I don't think there are 5 guys better than Derek.

Morneau did everything that was asked of him and much more. He carried the Twins to the pennant with a bunch of average hitters (save Mauer), while Jeter had his typical 1st-in-the-league payroll and 8 All-Stars starting alongside him. To me, that makes Morneau more valuable. he did more with less. Sure, the Twins pitchers were better (considerably so when Liriano was active), but you still have to score runs.

I just think Morneau deserved it more than Jeter did. Period.

Jeter Bias: he's finished 3rd (98) and 6th (99) in MVP voting before while not cracking the Top 9 in any other year except this one.

If you've read other Bill James books, you'll know about the tendency of writers to vote for someone novel in the face of consistency. Jeter always hits .320 with double digit homers, a bunch of steals and average defense (that I'll say is overrated on the whole). We don't know what Morneau will do in his career. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. Sometimes you have to be the MVP of yourself. Voters look for standout performances. No Twin had hit 30 homers since the pre-steroid HR boom of 1987. Morneau was a standout among Twins standouts and that's why he was rewarded.

Brett, you could say the same thing did Pujols in as well. This season was relatively indistinguishable from his last two--stellar to be sure, but run of the mill for him.

From Peter Abraham's Yankees blog:

"The person who voted Jeter sixth was Joe Cowley, the White Sox beat writer of the Chicago Sun-Times."

"I just think Morneau deserved it more than Jeter did. Period."

So now that we've cleared up that you're a moron, do you think Morneau deserved it more than the 11 guys not named Jeter that had better years with the bat than him? Is Morneau fielding like Ozzie Smith at the extremely difficult postion of 1B or something?

Reno: funny city, even funnier logic.

Mr. Furious: exactly! It's too bad for Pujols. Not to open this bag of worms, but it's really astonishing that Bonds won all of those MVPs and consecutively.

Can we at least all agree that the votes should be made public, i.e. who voted for who? That might clear up some of the "bias" talk. I do want to go on the record and say that although I am a yankee fan, there is no way in hell Jeter should have won the Gold Glove. I'll give that up. Gonzalez in Boston should have one that hands down. It's very hard to look back on this season and remember all that had happened especially in Minnesota. I picked up Morneau in my Fantasy League and he carried me to a title. I remember watching his average climb every week and was amazed. I just thought Jeter was getting hits when no one else on that team was. He played pretty good defense. And let us not forget that the Twins were also carried by their outstanding pitching duo of Liriano and Santana.

Brett, you're not being logical at all. There were 12 guys with more valuable seasons than Morneau, including 2 on his own team. You've offered nothing to dispute this other than assumptions and beliefs you've come up with without any real proof.

Just as a voice of reason for all those who want to say Jeter played with 8 all-stars starting alongside him, just remember that Aaron Guiel, Nick Green, Miguel Cairo, Andy Phillips, and Bubba Crosby all saw signifigant playing time because of injuries to Sheffield, Matsui, Cano, and Giambi. Again, not saying that Morneau wasn't deserving consideration (though I wouldn't have voted for him), but the ole Jeter plays with a roster of all-stars argument doesn't hold as much water as you'd think.

I'm with you, Jason. Make the votes open. And, no, Jeter should never have won the Gold Glove OR the Hank Aaron...

Is that the same Joe Cowley who used to pitch for the Yankees? Might explain why he didn't dig Jeter's work.
Anyway, be it VORP, Win Shares or Runs Created I think that Jeter had a better season offensively and even if you don't believe he was a Gold Glover - I'm a Yankee fan and don't really feel he's a GREAT shortstop - he's still a SS while Morneau's a first baseman and not the best defensive one at that. Yes Jeter had a better lineup but I don't think Morneau was so much more valuable than Mauer, Santana or Liriano that you could place so much of their success on his shoulders.

Boo hoo, Brian. Most teams are made up of guys like that playing EVERY day as starters, not just for a couple DL stints.

Mr. Furious...you completely missed my point.

I'm not saying "Poor Jeter" because of the guys he played with due to injuries. I know that the Yankee lineup, when healthy, is stacked more than almost any other team. I was merely pointing out that blindly stating that "Jeter plays with eight other all-stars" isn't entirely true.

If it's fair to point who he plays with as a vote against him, it's equally as fair to point them out as a vote for him.

Player 1: 566 AB / 30 2b / 35 HR / 113 RBI / .313 BA / .381 OBP / .551 SLUG / .932 OPS / 135 OPS+

Player 2: 592 AB / 37 2b / 34 HR / 130 RBI / .321 BA / .375 OBP / .559 SLUG / .934 OPS / 140 OPS+

Both are First Baseman from 90+ win teams who were the 3rd best players on their team. Player 2 won the MVP with 320 pts, the other received 3 points in the MVP race.

I just think Morneau deserved it more than Jeter did. Period.

Fine. You don't like the Yankees and their All Singin', All Dancin' All Stars. Let's put Jeter aside for the moment.

But did he deserve it more than Santana or Mauer?

Mauer had the higher OPS at the MUCH more demanding defensive position (and he played it brilliantly). Even down the stretch, Mauer outperformed Morneau. Mauer hit .329/.437/.506 in September, compared to Morneau's .348/.402/.487.

Morneau was an important cog, but did not singlehandedly "carry" this team.

About the only metric Morneau beats Mauer is Fan Graphs' Win Probablity Added. But Morneau then falls well short of Ortiz and Jeter.

Admit you're being emotional and irrational and we'll leave you alone.

Reno, I can list everyone alphabetically and say that there are 100 players better than Morneau. Just because you present a list, doesn't mean it's worth a crap.

value over a replacement player? i'm not overly familiar with the equations that create this value. if that is going to be your only guage, then yes i'm wrong your're right. you win.

if life exists outside of your little shell, there are more equations than just one that should go into the MVP award.

it would be FASCINATING to see (by divisions) who voted for who. then you could easily detect any bias. you could go back 10-20 years and get a sort of handicap for each region of the country and then against that region you could weigh the votes and then determine a real winner.

or you could just add votes.

How do we know Morneau didnt scoop the most balls out of the dirt among AL first basemen ? Sure you need more range and quickness and other abilities to play SS than 1B, but this is the Major Leagues, not a softball league where you can just stick anyone at 1B to play. let's not discount 1B as a lazy man's position.

Put it this way. How many times going into the playoffs did we hear about the Yankees lineup being one of the greatest, if not THE greatest lineup ever? Jeter was only one of nine.

Don't miss MY point either. this was arguably Jeter's best season in an absolute sure-fire HOF career. If there was ever a year for him to deserve the MVP, this was it. The problem for him is that others stepped up and made a claim as well.

Full disclosure: I am a Sox fan. Obviously that biases me against the Yankees. But I have actually had the utmost respect for Jeter. As an opponent he has always been like David Ortiz when he come up to the plate against the Sox--you just KNOW he is going to get the hit. I will say, that Jeter, the man, took a hit with me this year, because I really think he is incredibly petty about this whole ARod thing, and did a poor job as captain. That takes NOTHING away from his on-field performance, but this is the first year I would not use "intangibles" to burnish his MVP creds.

All of that said, had Jeter won, I would have shrugged, perhaps bitched slightly on my blog about Mauer deserving it more and moved on. Morneau winning is a far greater travesty...There are four or five guys AT LEAST who deserve it more.

Way to go Rob, play devil's advocate. I'm all for it. When I look at the MVP, I try to think who was most valuable to their team. If the Red Sox for example would have made the playoffs simply by Papi carrying them, i think he would have gotten a lot more votes. It didn't happen and he dropped in the voting. Jeter and Morneau carried their teams at times this year and if you take either one of them out of the lineup, it has a negative affect on their team. Putting numbers aside for a moment, who is more valuable to their respective team? For me its Jeter. He's the leader of that team, plays under a lot of media scrutiny (much more than Morneau), plays everyday (has to be forced out of the lineup) and all he wants to do is win, championships that is. I know some think he left AROD out to dry, but I look at it as the media were trying to single AROD out and Jeter wanted to stay focused on the team. Sure he could have went to bat for AROD but would it have helped? I think AROD has larger problems than gaining Jeter's complete acceptance. In determining what a player means to a team, I swear by VORP and WS's. And I totally agree from a previous post about sportswriters lack of effort or curiousity in seeking out these numbers. They mean a lot even if Jeter plays with "8 other all-stars". He is most valuable to his team and backs it up with solid numbers batting in the 2 spot mind you.

The voting should have been close as it was but I believe Jeter was the MVP this year. Period.

and then I put my now infamous line of

I just think Morneau deserved it more than Jeter did. Period.

just to get the chronology straight.

Anyway, it's interesting to make people justify their positions. In all candor, I would've given it to Mauer. People around here love him. They appreciate that Morneau is around to drive him in like every game, but the truth is that most Minnesotans consider Mauer the MVP.

Baseball writers are not sabermetricians for the most part and couldn't give two craps about anything other than AVG, HR and RBI. (George Bell 1987)

I'm not losing sleep if Morneau comes in 15th in the MVP voting. I just like arguing a tough case. Morneau is an extremely unlikely MVP winner.

No one has answered if any other teams had the Cy, MVP and batting champ.

Mr. Furious...agree with you on almost all your points, though I don't feel the same way about the whole Jeter/Arod thing. Frankly, as a Yankee fan, I'm tired of it all and just wish it would go away. But you're pretty much dead-on with everything else.

As far as the voting is concerned, I'm probably more upset about Morneau winning it over several more deserving players than Jeter losing it. It would have been cool, as a Yankee fan, to have him win it, but in the end it doesn't really mean that much.

Dig the screen name btw.

Benjamin-

One person puts Ibanez 8th and another puts Pierzynski 10th and this is what you find that encapsulates what's supposedly wrong with the voting?

You can go two ways on this. First of all, you only have to listen to five minutes of what passes for wisdom on sports talk radio to realize there are knuckleheads who are members of the BBWAA.

The other is there are 10 slots in the ballot. 10! I'll bet you if the ballot were cut in half you'd have a more focused vote. 'Course then you'd lose your Ibanez and Pierzynski banner points.

It still may not come out the way you would deem correct, though.

Judging from the number of comments on baseballmusings between the NL and AL MVP posts, there maybe an AL bias on this website. I think you could have easily made the case for Pujols over Howard in the NL but most who read this sight seem to be more interested in the AL. Discuss.

NL MVP wasn't today. I think overall there is a pretty even balance. Pinto does a decent job. It's cool for Howard that his total in one category won an MVP for him. It's not cool for Pujols to lose because of the rest of every category imaginable.

I'm an NL fan if I have to pick.

I think there's an anti-Canadian bias, you bastards.

rrk. Good pont, there seems to be no possible logic to voting TEN spots. How many MVP candidates are there?

Top three or five would at least require more thought and judgment by the voters. In theory anyway...

Thanks, Bri.

FWIW, I actually agree with Ryan Howard winning over Pujols. The guy carried a team that had actually surrendered at the deadline to a better record than Pujol's Cardinals.

Plus, I think the NL was a two-horse race in most people's minds. And while many could see why Pujols deserved the vote, Howard had a decent argument as well. In the AL, not only was the vote a surprise, since so many people assumed it would go to Jeter, the guy who DID win it, by most measurements, shouldn't have even been in the top 5 of the voting, especially since there seemed to be two other players on his own team more deserving. Surprise outcome + a greater number of deserving candidates = more discussion.

I'm not saying that Pinto has an AL bias, I was making light of all the bias talk with a bit of a joke. I was just curious to see if more people were AL, NL or MLB fans. I went back and read yesterdays posts on the NL MVP and the majority though that Pujols should have been the MVP. Art Kyriazis from philly was the only strong advocate for Howard and he's still waiting for somebody to debate him in the Philly Town Hall. Go read his post from yesterday if you haven't already. Its downright hilarious.

We have now more than doubled the amount of comments for the AL MVP over the NL. I just find that interesting.

Sorry, I meant "almost doubled the amount posts".

Clearly this should have been a landslide for Mauer. I am almost 100% certain that all votes for Morneau were cast by voters who read the "M" and a whole bunch of "a" "e" and "u"s and said great, I can vote for Mauer twice. That will teach that Jeter guy.

Jason:

"Sure he could have went to bat for AROD but would it have helped?"

Are you serious? You're putting forward the argument that his role as captain is a considerable feather in his cap. Can you name one specific thing that Jeter did to captain this team in a positive way?

At a time when media scrutiny and a home stadium echoing with boos was negatively affecting the one player whose performance needed the most improvement heading into the playoffs, this "captain" didn't do squat. That is the complete ABSENCE of leadership. There are plenty of numbers relevant to your argument - stick with those. Jeter's "leadership" is a joke, and has no place in this discussion. (In fact, I'd personally take "leadership" out of any discussion, regardless of team/player.)

Can Jeter trade in his three undeserved GG's for two deserved MVP's (1999 & 2006)? And can we take away the MVP vote from the quantitatively disabled? These guys are pathetic!

Quick poll:

Who are more inept:
Cy Young Voters
MVP Voters

Jeter got his Gold Glove this year (which belonged to Alex Gonzalez)...Morneau was the best player in the league after the first two months and he was the everyday punch in the lineup for a huge surprise in the AL Central. I don't mind the choice.

Jason,

I simply think this vote is more controversial. If Carlos Delgado won the NL vote, I think you'd see as many comments.

>I think there's an anti-Canadian bias, you bastards.

That's it! And it was right there in front of our faces all the time. And a Canadian with a French last name. Talk about the kiss of death!

But how about the fact the baseball writers are anti-Kalamazoo. Bastards!

It's a pretty hard argument to make, that Jeter deserved the MVP in 1999, the time when Pedro was the best pitcher in the history of modern baseball. I can't fathom a single measure in which Jeter was better on the field, and I'd even argue Pedro was a better teammate than Jeter at that time too. That aside...

Count me among the folks who would argue Morneau might not have even been in the top 10. I believe he was tied for 10th in OPS+, which factors home stadium into On Base plus Slugging. And he was tied with ARod, who had more HR's, got on base more, and played a much harder position.

I still fight for the MVP to be given to the player who leads in Win Probability Added... and www.fangraphs.com has Ortiz being that guy for 2006. If not him, I'd say Mauer or Jeter.

Hey Brett,

Check out the '62 Dodgers:

NL Batting Title--Tommy Davis (.346)
NL MVP--Maury Wills (104 steals, etc.)
MLB Cy Young--Don Drysdale (25-9, etc.)

One of my college roommates just emailed me (one of the biggest Twins fans I've known) and he's pissed. He thinks Pronk shoulda won it.

I like the argument that the first two months of the season don't matter in order for Morneau to legitimately be considered the MVP. Last I checked, if you don't count games from the first two months, Detroit -- who deserved the AL crown -- wouldn't even have been the wild card team.

It's like arguing that other than May and September, player X was better than player Y. Hell, Geoff Jenkins had a fabulous September, should we include him for having a great month (okay, wrong league, but you get the drift).

i think i'm with mike on this one, with a couple caveats. win probably added is a counting stat, so it automatically weights performance vs. playing time, as well as performance and clutchness. i just think you need to make adjustments for two things: defense and position. jeter and mauer should be given credit for playing premium positions, and we should remember that wpa only counts offensive (and pitching) contributions. as i'm told, jeter and ortiz come out about even if you adjust for position.

nice work salvomania! I was thinking it would be a batting champ/MVP combo that would be paired with the Cy to meet the requirements.

Interesting that the 62 Dodgers and 06 Twins won the same amount of post-season games.

I can't wait for next year's Strat season to play the Twins with an average first baseman against the Yankees with a league average shorstop and see who wins more against what the real team did.

Something funny just occurred to me.

Jeter, the whipping-boy of internet sabermetric-types, now has more MVPs from the Internet Baseball Awards than the traditional BBWA-types who are forever proclaiming his clutchellence.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/other/iba2006/

Nopeppergames,

What do you say to or about a player in the media that is clearly a better player than you. AROD is better than Jeter. Whats he supposed to say? I think this whole situation with Jeter and AROD was blown way out of the water. And Jeter backs up his being Captain with numbers and clutch hits, that was my point.

To Dave Pinto,

I have to disagree on the degree of controversy. Many out there feel that Howard was voted MYP because of one stat, 58 HRs. Pujols was clearly the better, all-around player this year. There should be more controversy and talk over the NL award just like the AL award.

"Reno, I can list everyone alphabetically and say that there are 100 players better than Morneau. Just because you present a list, doesn't mean it's worth a crap.

value over a replacement player? i'm not overly familiar with the equations that create this value. if that is going to be your only guage, then yes i'm wrong your're right. you win.

if life exists outside of your little shell, there are more equations than just one that should go into the MVP award. "

Great stuff, retard.

Morneau is top in the Top 5 in pretty much every advanced metric every created. This is a terrible, terrible MVP. Dude should basically just give it back out embarrassment.

Figures I call the retard a retard and then make a mistake in my own post. That should have read Morneau is NOT in the Top 5 in pretty much every advanced metric.

Reno: you must have some severe selective-reading. You missed the posts since then when I quit promoting Morneau as the MVP and pointed out I was being a Devil's advocate.

Morneau is ridiculous as MVP. Give it Mauer, give it to Pronk, give it to even a Yankee, but Morneau was probably the worst MVP decision of the decade. That's fine, the writers find a way to jack up one vote every decade. Was Juan Gonzalez really the most valuable guy in the 90s. the voting would say so.

It's funny that my nickname in college was Retard. The backstory is funny, but has nothing to do with baseball. It does have something to do with ultimate frisbee however.

Stay classy, Reno.

Gee, Reno, if this is your class act concerning a Morneau mvp, how do you keep your head from exploding when you bump into something that really matters?

Speaking of little shells.

Jason,

"What do you say to or about a player in the media that is clearly a better player than you. AROD is better than Jeter. Whats he supposed to say?"

How about - "A-Rod is a fantastic contributor to this team, the defending AL MVP, and an outstanding fielder who has been going through a rough stretch - just like every player on this team has had at one time or another. The negative attention given to him and the Yankee fanbase is completely off-base and unsubstantiated; I support him 100%."

Instead, he said the following: "..."

"And Jeter backs up his being Captain with numbers and clutch hits, that was my point."

Well, so does Sheffield. So does Giambi. So does Posada. So does Matsui. And, in fact, so does A-Rod. What exactly does he do differently than 5+ other guys on the team? He certainly didn't sacrifice his infatuation with SS for the betterment of the team when A-Rod came on-board. He's not willing to stick his neck out in the media (nor is Torre, for that matter). Players give verbal media support to teammates ALL THE TIME. We didn't hear one peep from El Capitan.

Brett-
the '86 Red Sox had Cy/MVP Clemens and Boggs a batting champ.

you sabermetric people are really mean. you should try WATCHING some baseball to relax. lol

http://www.wfan.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=173121

I hate Mike & Chris, but they should just take Cowley's vote away.

I believe that most people are idiots. And "Mr Furious" and "Brett" do nothing in this thread to change my mind. :)

How in the world does Justin Morneau manage to get named the AL MVP for all of 2006 when MLB never even acknowledged him with a Player of the Week Award?

Jeter was robbed, but you can't blame Joe Cowley alone. Even if Cowley had ranked Jeter #1, he might not have won the award. It depends on who Cowley actually did vote in the #1 spot. If his vote was for Morneau, and you changed his ballot to Jeter-1 and Morneau-2, the best Jeter does is a tie, which admittedly, is still an award. The other #1 vote went to Johan Santana, so if that was Cowley's #1, then Jeter still loses, 320-315.

I'm sorry, but Jeter plays on an all-star team of sorts. He had A-rod, Giambi and then Abreu hitting behind him. My goodness, get real on his stats. He is an awesome player, but not the MVP. The sad part of MVP comes down to how a team does. Wins and losses. Is that how the award was intended? I SERIOUSLY doubt that. Why does it come down to a few players, on the teams that win the most games ? That's actually a joke. The actual MVP as far as what he did................hands down David Ortiz. The guy simply was a one man wrecking crew. I'm not an AL East fan at all.....but he REALLY stood out this year in stats, my mind.......and all the highlights that everyone saw.

For context, Justin Morneau had an almost identical season to Paul Konerko.

how does a writer that got suspended from voting for most valuable player in 2002 get another chance this year ? does chicago have any better writers?

how does a writer that got suspended from voting for most valuable player in 2002 get another chance this year ? does chicago have any better writers?

For you VORPoholics and Win Share freaks out there here are a few points to ponder about Morneau being named 2006 MVP over Jeter. The VORP and Win Shares statistics, while valid are based on theory not reality. Morneau�s true value to the Twins can be derived easily from examining his basic hitting statistics. Consider the following, in early June the Twins were 25-33 (.431) and Morneau was batting .236. After that time the Twins went a league best 71-33 (.683) with Morneau leading the league in hitting and RBI�s over the same period. The Twins went 57-15 (.792) in games that Morneau had an RBI and they went 25-6 (.806) in games he homered in. Morneau�s feat of having at least 1 RBI in 57 games was tops in the league, ARod was second with 50. In addition, his having an RBI in 59.4% of the Twins wins (57/96) led the league, Ibanez was second at 57.7% (45/78). The numbers presented here all provide direct evidence to support Morneau�s case for being named the most VALUABLE player in the AL this past season.

You can still make a valid case for Jeter being MVP using VORP and Win Shares, but those of you claiming that Morneau didn�t belong in the top 5 or top 10 just don�t know what you�re talking about.