MVP

[GreatScott82]

i think of the un-sung hero's like El-duque and Geoff Blum. Look at my avatar It also reminds me that EVERYONE on that playoff roster played a significant role in the playoffs. Not many WS championship teams can say that.

[kapkomet]

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I don't think Cheat is, either, but he's a stat freak.

[mr_genius]

some of you guys think Jeter should have been MVP!????

 

wtf

[Purdue129]

some of you guys think Jeter should have been MVP!????

 

wtf

 

I know a lot of people here aren't big on stats, but as was already posted:

 

Winshares

Jeter - 33

Morneau - 27

 

VORP

Jeter - 80.5

Morneau - 52.0

 

Morneau should have been behind Mauer and Santana.

 

Since I can't watch every single game of every single team I've have to rely at least partly on the stats, which are pretty cut and dry.

[Gregory Pratt]

Mariotti's latest column is interesting: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/mariotti/14...T-jay24.article

 

Time to do away with the write 'n' vote

 

November 24, 2006

BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist

There are so many conflicts of interest in sportswriting, you sometimes have to take three showers after sitting in a press box. The possibilities for impropriety are endless, so allow me to suggest eliminating one glaring problem area: No longer should a writer vote in official balloting of any sort, whether it's for an MVP award, a Hall of Fame berth, the Heisman Trophy, a Top 25 poll or a mascot battle between Benny the Bull and the Gorilla.

We are here to report the news and comment about the news. We are not here to participate in voting that puts us in position to make news, especially if it creates the appearance of a voter ingratiating himself to the team he covers or, perhaps, penalizing other teams. Just because we cover sports doesn't mean we should be part of their electoral mechanisms. We should be detached from the big machine, with editors advising leagues to find other methods of determining honors.

 

This way, Joe Cowley doesn't have to hire a bodyguard posse the next time he travels to Yankee Stadium.

 

It isn't fair to blanketly accuse Cowley, who covers the White Sox for the Sun-Times, of pandering to the Sox or disliking the Yankees because he was the only voter to place Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye as high as second on an American League MVP ballot -- and the only voter to place Yankees icon Derek Jeter as low as sixth. While his decision seems to smack of Sox favoritism -- Dye fell out of serious MVP contention as the Sox faded in mid-September -- I accept Cowley's rationale that Dye and other candidates produced huge numbers that meant more to their teams than Jeter's contributions. Still, in New York, Cowley is being called ''a shameless Chicago shill'' and ''anti-Yankee yokel'' who ''cheated'' Jeter out of the award. Such were the characterizations in the New York Post, which trumpeted a ''JEETED'' headline on its front page and turned a writers' vote into, yep, the news.

 

 

Answers demanded on the air

If the commotion about one ballot can grow so out of control, it's time to pull the plug on the process. The controversy subjected Cowley to a media circus in which he was roasted on New York's ''Mike and the Mad Dog'' radio show and by Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio. You could hear Patrick's deep voice turn soprano when, incredulously, he asked Cowley how he could be the only writer to place Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski (10th) on the ballot while leaving Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, the sixth-place finisher, out of his top 10. Just as it's impossible to defend Cowley on that one, he had to explain his quirky MVP vote of 2003, when he left the Toronto Blue Jays' Carlos Delgado off his ballot even as Delgado (42 homers, 145 RBI) finished second to Alex Rodriguez in a close vote.

In defense of Cowley, baseball is a thinking man's sport open to interpretation, as Bill James and all the sabermetricians will tell you. And please note that Cowley alone didn't cost Jeter the award; even if he'd voted Jeter first instead of sixth, the difference wouldn't have been enough to overcome winner Justin Morneau. I also agree with his choice of Morneau as MVP, knowing the first baseman hit .362 in the Twins' June-to-October surge and was consistently productive in the clutch. Jeter was brilliant in big moments, as well, and helped keep the Yankees together through injury issues. But I wonder where he was, as captain, through the summerlong soap opera of Rodriguez. If leadership is a significant part of Jeter's intangibles, shouldn't he have had A-Rod's back when he was being ripped by fans, media and a few teammates? Was this more proof the two don't get along -- and, if so, shouldn't that be a factor in a tight MVP decision?

 

These are not questions a writer in Chicago should be answering on an official ballot. A Sox beat writer sees his team all season and the Yankees six times. He lives with Sox players and learns to appreciate their contributions out of habit. Yet in New York, they think the worst -- that a Sox beat writer might vote for his guys, tell them about it, then get favorable treatment. This is why baseball -- and all sports -- should form panels of voters that don't involve newspaper writers. We are not part of the team or part of the sport; we are writing ABOUT the sport.

 

As a longtime member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, I accrued enough seniority to become a Hall of Fame voter years ago. I appreciate the honor and respect the BBWAA, but I would prefer not to have the vote. Let me explain one reason. It's no secret Sox management isn't fond of me, though I've always covered the team with the same tone I cover the Cubs, Bears and others. I hold them all to equal standards, as regular readers know. But say the Sox have a Hall candidate or two. What if I think one is undeserving and vote no? That makes me a Sox hater in the public view.

 

 

Objectivity isn't for everyone What if I said Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, despite his political ways and public-relations mistakes through the years, belongs in the Hall of Fame for his prominence and clout? That would shock you, but that's my opinion. What if I said Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson no more belongs in the Hall broadcasters' wing than Elmer Fudd? That would not shock you, but that's my opinion. Frank Thomas, who once said he wanted to stick his bat up my butt sideways, wasn't HOF in my book earlier this decade because his career tailed off. But with his recent revival and new profile as a non-cheater in the steroids era, he's deserving now. That's called putting on political blinders and doing the right thing.

That said, I don't want to be in position to officially judge one's immortality. I am paid to write about sports people, not determine their places in history. Many writers can separate personal feelings and vote fairly. Unfortunately, some can't.

 

The fact Cowley is a public enemy in New York tells this has gone way too far. Why should he vote for MVP? Why should I vote for Cooperstown? Why should another writer who has attended two games all year vote for the Heisman? Now that newspapers are out of the college football/ BCS voting muck, we need to pull out of sports balloting altogether.

 

Sometimes a writer can't avoid making the news, such as when he's called an ''[expletive] f**'' by a manager. But we can avoid accusations of JEETING by not getting involved. In this case, not voting would be the American thing to do.

[southsider2k5]

So those articles attacking Cowley surely have references to Jeter returning all of those bogus Golden Glove awards he has gotten the last couple of years, right?