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Tuesday, November 21, 2006 |
MVP More? No. So Don't Get Mad, Get Even.
By now you've probably heard that Justin Morneau won the AL MVP. This has to be one of the worst selections in the history of the award. Yes, Derek Jeter deserved it, but there were plenty of other candidates that deserved consideration far before Morneau, and that starts with his own teammates, Joe Mauer and Johan Santana. I won't cry collusion, but you're telling me there's nothing fishy here? There was no split of a vote between Mauer and Morneau? Mauer finishes sixth, and only Jeter and Morneau get first place consideration (besides the one vote for Santana)? There's definitely something rotten in the state of Denmark.
I'm really too disgusted by the BBWAA over their selections for MVP awards to really delve into the numbers here, and I'm sure those will proliferate over the net all day. The only stats I feel like posting are these: Jeter led the AL in VORP and Win Shares. Morneau ranked 12th in VORP and 5th in Win Shares. It's a dark day for SABRheads. Here are some comments by some other sources whom I respect, however.
Rob Neyer:
Justin Morneau won the 2006 MVP
Indeed he did. Which is clearly the wrong choice. The up-side is that there's clearly still plenty of room in my business for young men who enjoy facts. Justin Morneau was not one of the five best players in the American League. Rotoworld (who usually are not exactly Jeter fans):
"Morneau wins despite leading the league in no significant categories. He finished eighth in OPS and 10th once OPS is adjusted for ballpark, and since he did that as an average defensive first baseman with little value on the basepaths, he qualifies as perhaps the weakest MVP in decades."
Justin Morneau was named AL MVP on Tuesday after receiving 15 of the 28 first-place votes.
Ridiculous. Derek Jeter came in second with 12 first-place votes and 306 points. Even though Morneau was, in reality, the third most valuable player on his team, he ranked in the top four on all 28 ballots cast by the writers, giving him 320 points. In third place was David Ortiz, who received 193 points. The rest of the top 10 included Frank Thomas (174), Jermaine Dye (156), Joe Mauer (116), Johan Santana (114), Travis Hafner (64), Vladimir Guerrero (46) and Carlos Guillen (34). Santana received the lone first-place vote not going to Morneau or Jeter, but seven voters left him off the ballot entirely. Morneau wins despite leading the league in no significant categories. He finished eighth in OPS and 10th once OPS is adjusted for ballpark, and since he did that as an average defensive first baseman with little value on the basepaths, he qualifies as perhaps the weakest MVP in decades. BBTF:
A twincredibly bad decision by the voters to choose the Doctor over the Chairman or the Captain. Keith Law:
Morneau awful choice for AL MVP
I think all carping about the NL MVP voters getting their choice wrong must immediately cease. The AL's voters couldn't even correctly identify the most valuable Twin, never mind wrapping their heads around a whole league.
The reality of baseball is that a great offensive player at an up-the-middle position is substantially more valuable than a slightly better hitter at a corner position. And when that up-the-middle player is one of the best fielders at his position in baseball, there's absolutely no comparison. Joe Mauer was more valuable than Justin Morneau this past season. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the first thing about baseball.
Mauer had a 54-point edge in OBP over Morneau, which overwhelms the advantage Morneau had in slugging percentage (a 52-point edge). But Mauer won the Gold Glove for his position this past year, and he is arguably the best-fielding catcher in the game when you consider all aspects of catching. Catchers who field and hit the way Mauer does are extremely valuable, just as shortstops who hit like Derek Jeter does and play passable defense are extremely valuable. First basemen who hit like Morneau just shouldn't win MVP awards in years when there are Mauers and Jeters and other candidates to choose from.
Here are the official votes.
You'll notice Jeter actally got a 6th place vote.
Peter Abraham found the culprit:
The person who voted Jeter sixth was Joe Cowley, the White Sox beat writer of the Chicago Sun-Times. Jeter was .292/.393/.542 against the White Sox this season.
Cowley just went on Mike & The Mad Dog and didn't represent the profession very well. He claimed the Yankees would have done just as well without Jeter in the lineup, that Ortiz kept the Red Sox in contention and that Ortiz had better numbers in the clutch than Jeter did. Never mind that the Red Sox were out of the ace in mid-August, the Yankees played nearly all season without Sheff and Matsui and Jeter had better RISP numbers than Ortiz.
Runners in scoring position
Jeter: .381/.482/.581
Morneau: .323/.401/.575
Ortiz: .288/.429/.538
Thomas: .298/.400/.547
Close and late situations
Jeter: .325/.434/.434
Morneau: .299/.343/.540
Ortiz: .314/.443/.756
Thomas: .298/.400/.547 (I'll provide the Mike and the Mad Dog audio link when it becomes available).
Well let's all let Joe Cowley know what a useless, mindless, small little man he is. After all, he gets paid to write and thus gets to vote on things that affect people, and giving Jeter a 6th place vote in inexcusable. So tell him. Berate him. I encourage, nay, I call upon all of you to mail bomb Joe Cowley. Contact him at jcowley@suntimes.com. Mail him once. Mail him twice. Sign him up for pornography lists. Set up a mail rule to forward all of your spam to him. Find the filthiest, most disgusting site, and register his email address.
I'm not taking this sportwriter idiocy lying down anymore. Neither should you. Join me in this crusade and let's give Mr. Cowley a very, very bad day.
** Update: Mike and the Mad Dog interviewing the guy we're all signing up for porn and spam (right?) is available here.Labels: keith law
posted by Mr. Faded Glory @ 2:18 PM
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18 Comments:
the way he's going i might just let rob neyer cop a feel
:D
I've always enjoyed his work and he's always been really cool to talk one-on-one with.
i saved latin. what did you ever do?
the truth is neither one of us has the slightest idea where this relationship is going. we can't predict the future.
I refuse to read the column because I will likely be sent into a fit of rage, but the backpage of the Daily News today says something like "Jeter wasn't robbed," and you can guess which jackass sportswriter put that one together. I think we all know how Lupicass voted after just seeing the headline...
(I would like to see his argument for Morneau winning it, but still. Not worth the rise in blood pressure)
you think i got kicked out because of just the aquarium? nah, it was the handjob... and you know what else? it was worth it.
quit being a baby.
jeter had a great year but wasn't exactly a shoo-in.
jeter's intangibles and the "thinking man's argument" don't get mvps, gaudy numbers do.
morneau had incredible numbers and his team also won. and his team overcame the enormous lead the tigers had most of the season.
jeter's winning the batting title probably would've put him over the top though.
that anti-new york nonsense that the post is spewing (explain a-rod's win last year then) sounds like what you're doing here -- sour grapes that your (our) guy didn't get it.
that asshole from chicago voting jeter sixth -- that is crazy. to ignore the case that someone else deserved the award as well is also crazy.
i'm a yankees fan, by the way.
That's all well and good, "Anonymous."
The problem isn't whether or not Jeter won the award - it's the flawed voters. Had Joe Mauer won the award, no problem. Johan Santana? Deserving.
In my opinion, you have to be the MVP of your TEAM before you're crowned MVP of the LEAGUE, and Morneau had at least two other ahead of him for the former.
You must not read this site that much if you really think Jeter is "my guy."
"anonymous" here again.
winning a batting title doesn't automatically make you more valuable than another player on your team -- if that were the case than ANY batting champion would be more valuable than a guy with stats like morneau ANY time and that's just not true (sometimes, yes, but not all times). mauer's being a catcher managing that staff doesn't equate in mvp voting -- it seems like defense only comes into play when dealing with DHs vs. position players -- but that's where all discussion ends. santana is a pitcher (in a season where there were no 20 game winners and in a climate where pitchers almost never win the mvp) so his winning was also not going to happen, as you know. morneau hit .364 from mid-june on (up from .235), when the twins started playing well and eventually overcame the tigers. his great play and the twins winning maybe wasn't a coincidence. like jeter and his intangibles, morneau and his fantastic, concrete numbers had a direct result on how the twins did.
when I called jeter "your (our)guy" i mean that as a yankee fan in general.
jeter came through with sheffield, matsui, and cano being hurt. but when his big claims are on base percentage and avg. with runners in scoring position, it's a stretch to say that he was the only worthy candidate.
as for flawed voters, maybe a BCS system where we put all stats in a computer and have it decide would make you happier. because ALL those voters were as spiteful as cowley, right? there is no other way to look at it, right?
i do read and like your blog quite a bit though.
I guess I see where the arrogant, ignorant George King gets it from, you guys are unreal.
There's nothing wrong with the system, you guys just don't like the result.
The NY post in particular has read like the rantings of a five year old that didn't get a toy he particularly wanted. Pathetic.
There's nothing wrong with the system, you guys just don't like the result.
You say this like it's a bad thing. But seriously, there IS something wrong with a system that overlooks at least three better choices (two of whom are teammates of the winner) just by looking at one set of numbers. I have more of a problem with the fact that Mariano Rivera might be just as worthy as Jeter for the award, if not more so, yet we never really hear that from anyone.
These people are supposed to be the ones who get us the news we can't get because we don't have access to a press pass. Don't know how you can trust a reporter who just comes off as an ignorant idiot. And there are many in this case.
I've studied and written in detail about the voting system, wrote a 7 page letter and sent it to some sports editors, & posted much on my blog about it. This blog is the only one other than mine that discusses this subject, for a couple of reasons. I'd like to know exactly what a columnist said that was untrue.I happen to agree with this blog's owner that this isn't about Jeter primarily, but about the voters. Also, the Lupica back page headline was, of course, misleading. I read his article & it
didn't bear out the thesis of the headline. He pretty much mashed the subject up, as they all do. Lupica himself did not have a vote. The 2 "NY" voters were both from New Jersey newspapers, 1 of which employs a guy with a pathological aversion to Jeter. Guess what--that
paper failed to vote Jeter #1. Morneau is Canadian--both Toronto voters had him #1. I have plenty of other details, but the bottom line is the focus must be on news organizations to stop allowing their employees to vote on baseball awards.
baseball should open up the voting and not limit it to two voters per city where there is a team. it can produce dubious results. the nba has a better system -- LOTS of people vote and because there is a larger sampling it is harder to question their results.
"Well let's all let Joe Cowley know what a useless, mindless, small little man he is. After all, he gets paid to write and thus gets to vote on things that affect people, and giving Jeter a 6th place vote in inexcusable. So tell him. Berate him. I encourage, nay, I call upon all of you to mail bomb Joe Cowley. Contact him at jcowley@suntimes.com. Mail him once. Mail him twice. Sign him up for pornography lists. Set up a mail rule to forward all of your spam to him. Find the filthiest, most disgusting site, and register his email address."
You need to drink a warm glass of milk. And get outdoors more often.
Nice try Joe Cowley
I actually met Cowley in Tucson, Az, while stringing for the AP during Spring Training in 2001.
Here was my first impression of him:
He walked into the press room, saw that all of the seats were taken, and loudly asked "What are all these hacks doing in here?"
Later, while in Jerry Manuel's office, I had the audacity to ask Manuel a question while Cowley (who was with the Daily Southy at the time, whoopee) was in the room. Cowley nearly had a cow because I had the nerve to speak up and ask a question.
Manuel was the exact opposite. He answered my question and in no way tried to "Big League" me.
Cowley is an A-hole deluxe, in a 4-foot-11 frame. It was all I could do not to haul off an knock his teeth out.
By the way, Joe, this "hack" has won six AP awards since you made a complete ass of yourself in Tucson.
Hey thanks for that, it's a great story. Cowley sounds more and more like Lupica without the tenure.
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