Justin Morneau

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

lol, i know it's not that big of a deal, Albeit, Jeter was a better overall player, I think in my twisted little mind, that Morneau was more valuable to his team than Jeter was, IMO

Dr. Giganto

Like i said at the very beginning, I think Morneau is certainly a pretty good choice. He had a GREAT year.

I just think that if I had a vote, I would go Jeter #1, and I wanted to give my justifications.

For every Jeter-over-Morneau point (i.e. speed), there's a corresponding Morneau-over-Jeter point (i.e. power). It's a tough decision. Morneau is a fine choice. I just happen to think that Jeter would have been a SLIGHTLY better one.

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

Seriously, go to ESPN.com, they are having the same arguement except there is no Morneau side it's really pathetic in my mind

Dr. Giganto

haha, i'll check it out

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

Normally ESPN is unbiased and fair(HA) normally their not so bad, but they went overboard in my mind this time

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

You want the Real MVP? for stats that is? A Healthy Travis Hafner. He has the best PG average of anyone.

My vote was for Mauer btw

Dr. Giganto

oh yeah, Hafner was awesome this year. Unfortunately, he had three things working against hime

1. He doesnt play the field

2. He missed a month of the season

3. His team didnt even sniff the playoffs

Any one of those three you could overlook, but all 3 is too much

Dr. Giganto

This is why the MVP voting process is fucked up (credit: NY Post). My comments in bold:

November 22, 2006 -- Joe Cowley placing Derek Jeter sixth on his American League MVP ballot didn't cost the Yankee captain the award. Even if the Chicago Sun-Times writer had put the shortstop atop his list, Jeter still would have finished second to Twins first baseman Justin Morneau.

Still, Cowley, who covers the White Sox, took a beating yesterday across the country for voting Jeter sixth on a 10-man ballot.

"I look at two things unless the numbers are just so freaky," said Cowley. "One, the player has to play on a contending team,

Which explains why he picked two players whose teams did not make the playoffs (Jermaine Dye and David Ortiz) ahead of Jeter. Also note that Ortiz's team finished in THIRD place this year.

and two, is this the guy who single-handedly carried his team?

Of course, this is the most important thing to consider when looking at an MVP. How shitty is the rest of his team? Only in the twisted minds of sportswriters could there be an inverse relationship between a player's performance and the quality of talent around him.

But wait, he just said that they have to be a contending team. So, basically, the rest of the team has to be good, just not THAT good.

This type of thinking is equivalent to this. Let's say I was a real estate analyst, and I wanted to figure out what's the most valuable piece of real estate in New York City. So, first I look at all the Park Avenue apartments, and I see like a hundred apartments that have a "value" of 5 million dollars, and one apartment that is a little bit bigger, and nicer, and has a value of 6 million dollars.

Now, I decide to look at the apartments in Forest Hills (a more middle-class neighborhood) and there are 100 apartments that are valued at 1 million dollars, and one apartment that is valued at 4 million dollars.

By the logic this guy used, the 4 million dollar apartment would be more valuable than the 6 million dollar one, because the apartments around it aren't as nice. That's stupid.

"I look at all the numbers and what I see first hand. Morneau is the heart of that team and had a lot of clutch hits.

Morneau's overall numbers: .321/.375/.559

Morneau's "Close and late" numbers: .318/.319/.523

Looks pretty clutch to me...

Take him out of the lineup and that team is in the middle of the pack.

Not true. Think about it like this: If everybody on the Twins retired today, and they had to fill their team with AAA call-ups, how many games do you think that team would win? I think 40 wins (a .250 winning percentage) sounds about right. The Twins won 96 games this year, so the 25 guys on the team combined to contribute an additional 56 wins (we'll use 55, for simplicity's sake). Let's assume "middle of the pack" means a .500 record, 81-81.

That would mean that if you simply took Justin Morneau out of the Twins line-up, the team would have won 15 less games. Or, basically, that of the 55 additional wins that the Twins had over a team of rookies and bottom-rung players, the other 24 guys only combined for 40 wins. So, Morneau accounted for 15 wins, but Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Michael Cuddyer, Joe Mauer, and the other 18 players COMBINED for less than 3 times the contribution that Morneau had. A safer guess would be that a Morneau-less Twins team would have won somewhere between 85 and 90 games

"Derek Jeter had nice numbers, but you could plug another guy in that lineup and that guy would have close to his numbers."

That's right. You could plug ANYBODY else in and he would bat .343. Or steal 34 bases in 39 attempts (87% success rate). And play solid defense at the second-hardest defensive position in baseball.

"To me, too many people go by too many numbers," said Cowley

I never understand how people can use this argument. Numbers and stats are nothing more than a record of what a player did. When Derek Jeter came to home plate this year, he reached base (read: did not make an out) 41.8% of the time. That's really really good. The league average was 33.3%. If you include the effect of stolen bases and caught stealings, Derek Jeter averaged .584 bases per at-bat. Morneau averaged .598. Morneau may have had a lot more power, but Jeter's ability to not make outs and his speed nearly made up for it. And, Jeter's defense adds value as well.

"Jeter plays in a great offensive lineup."

So what?

This isn't the first time Cowley has been in the eye of an MVP controversy.
In 2003, when he worked for the Daily Southtown, Cowley left Carlos Delgado and Vernon Wells off his ballot.

Delgado's numbers that year: .302/.426/.593, 42 HRs, 142 RBIs, 117 runs scored.

Wells' numbers that year: .317/.359/.550, 33 HRs, 117 RBIs, 118 runs scored.

Toronto's record that year: 86-76. This is important, because note that this guy had Ortiz fifth this year.

Boston's record this year: 86-76

Chicago chapter chairman Paul Sullivan suspended Cowley from voting the following year because he didn't think Cowley took the voting seriously and "embarrassed" the Chicago chapter.

And of course, he's back voting for MVP 3 years later. Awesome.

Freak

That gives Canada league MVPs in three of the four major sports this past year -- and TWO from right here in beautiful British Columbia!

Now, if only Mike Vanderjagt picked up his game...

Suntan Superman

WC's Resident Samoan

Ha if vanderjagt would lay off the liquor maybe his play would improve. And you're absolutely right Tom, That guy is a complete moron however, i believe Keith Law still wins my idiot of the month award