While it's nice to see a fellow Canadian win the award, I have to say that I think Morneau was a horrible choice. Twelfth in the league in homers, seventh in BA, and second in RBI - not bad, but not MVP-worthy against Mauer and Jeter. I don't even think Morneau is the most valuable guy on his own team - Mauer and Santana are both more important.
Jeter and Mauer both had higher averages and OBP (Mauer was 50 points higher), and both play much more valuable defensive positions. One guy voted Jeter sixth, and five guys didn't even rank Mauer on their ballots. To me, that's just plain stupid.
Anyway, that's just my opinion - what do you guys think?
2006-11-22 05:15:42 · 17 answers · asked by Craig S 7 in Sports ➔ Baseball
First of all let's kill the idea that a DH could ever be an MVP. One must play a complete game to worthy of such an award. And to those of you who hate Derek Jeter just for general principle, you all need to get over it. You may hate the Yankees and hate Jeter but there is not one person out there who wouldn't want the success that the Yankees have had and will continue to have over the years. This also applies to Derek Jeter. If Jeter was wearing your teams uniform you would feel very different I'm sure. Admit it or not Jeter in the captain of a team that lives in the biggest market and hottest pressure pot in all of sports. Great players have come and gone in NY because they can't deal with the media hype. A-Rod is the latest example of one who is having great difficulty. Having said that I remind you all that the Yankees went into the season with questionable pitching and still ended up with the best record in baseball (tied with the Mets at 97 wins). And while the Yankees fought their own injury demons, Jeter was the one player who kept the ship from sinking. Also 97 RBI's for a number two hitter is, in a word, remarkable! You can spin doctor all you want but Jeter should have won the award. If not Jeter, Santana for sure, but not Morneau. I'm out!
2006-11-22 06:36:58 · answer #1 · answered by The Mick "7" 7 · 21⤊ 1⤋
You've gotta take into accout also that Morneau plays in Minnesota, a very pitcher friendly park which explains the home runs. Sure, you can say Jeter is more clutch but there is actually a statistic that contradicts that statement: Late innings of close games: Jeter- .245 BA, .303 slugging / Morneau- .318 BA, .523 slugging. Ok, now to fielding: the truth is fielding is not as important as people make it out to be and even still you could get Morneau and a better shortstop in Alex Gonzalez for less than half the price of Jeter's 19 million. Finally, the MVP award has traditionally been about RBIs in fact when the award was first created that was the ONLY thing taken into considereation. Jeter was on a team that scored over 120 more runs that the twins over the course of the season so each of Morneau's rbis and runs were more important than Jeter's (not to mention he had more of them than Jeter anyways).
2006-11-22 05:34:58 · answer #2 · answered by miamiman 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
A high batting average means squat compared if you don't score or knock in runs.
Morneau - .321 Avg, 130 HR, 97 Runs, 34 HR
Mauer - .347 Avg, 84 RBI, 86 Runs, 13 HR - People seem to forget his lack of power. He batted in the 3rd spot all season long and appeared in 140 games so its not like being catcher hurt him with resting. And this was the season he came up with? Not MVP-caliber.
Santana is a pitcher, he plays every 5 days, he has his own award to earn - the Cy Young. Let the MVP award go to position players because they can't win Cy Youngs.
The biggest reason why people don't understand Morneau's choice is because no one heard about him. From June to the end of the season, Morneau batted .362 which led the entire Majors, he led the AL in RBIs at the same time. Who scored the runs to allow Santana to win games? Morneau did. He brought the Twins from a sub-.500 team to winning the AL central - a noticeably harder division this last year than the AL East.
But he doesn't get any recognition because he is on a team with the #1 pitcher in the majors, the #1 RoY till Liriano got injured, and a batting-champion catcher.
And I'm not even going to touch the argument about Jeter, there are people who think he's God's gift to baseball and those who think he's the most overrated player in baseball. You can guess which one I am. I'll just say he had a good year, but not MVP.
2006-11-22 05:43:09 · answer #3 · answered by badgerlicious03 2 · 2⤊ 3⤋
I think Morneau was the perfect choice. HRs are a flash stat. RBIs and runs scored are what is important. HRs are looked at because traditionally the produce RBIs and runs scored. Morneau was a much better RBI man than Ortiz. He had far fewer opportunities yet almost drove in as many runs as Ortiz. Morneau had no protection while Ortiz had plenty. Ortiz hit in batter friendly Fenway. Morneau plays defense, Ortiz sits on the bench. Morneau outclassed Ortiz in everything but HRs. So? HR's rarely win games. Morneau was much more likely to move runners over, and drive them in than Ortiz.
Another key point is Most VALUABLE player. Ortiz could have not played a lick this season and the Sox would have had plenty of offense. Injuries to Ramierez and Nixon hurt the Sox offense but the Redsox did not lack offense this year. It was pitching and defense that killed them. Morneau was the heart of the Twin's offense. Maur had a great Batting average and being a catcher with that kind of batting average is very impressive. Maur only scored 86 runs and drove in 84 RBI. Good stats but far from MVP calibur.
Santana was indeed crucial to the Twin's effort and deserved the Cy Young award he won. His season wasn't THAT good to give him both Cy Young and MVP. I'm personally of the opinion that pitchers shouldn't get the MVP unless they hall of fame eye popping good in a season. Unless they just plain carry the team all year long and the team is successful. 19-6 with a 2.77 era is a good year. Not an awesome year. Deffinitely not an eye popping hall of fame kind of year. It was a good year.
When it comes to the Dye, Thome, Konerko your just a few RBIs and BA points away from Dye and Konerko having identical seasons. Thome's BA was sub par but he was up there with Konerko on HRs and RBIs. That three players on the same team have such close stats is a really good argument against any one of them being crucial to their team's efforts. This is the MVP not the silver slugger award we are talking about. There is a difference. MVP considers all aspects including club house, or should. The best pure hitter gets the silver slugger award. Morneau's stats stand up to all three of the Whitesox cantidates with ease. Morneau was obviously more important to the Twins who's next best hitter was Maur and Maur's stats are not even close to Morneau's.
So I think the writers made an unusually good and perceptive choice. A quiet team ind of guy on a small market team wins the award for the reasons the MVP award are supposed to be given. Unlike the NL which again equated the HR crown with MVP. Sorry HRs do not win many games. All or nothing sluggers are usually more of a detriment to a team than help. Ortiz had to have a late season surge just to get his batting average above .270. I am offended that anybody even considers a guy barely hitting his weight for the MVP award. (Ortiz probably weighs 250 lbs) BA isn't everything but come on, in this era if a star hitter can't hit .300 then something is wrong.
2006-11-22 07:42:00 · answer #4 · answered by draciron 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Morneau was not the right choice. he got benched in july cuz he was sucking. he does good half the season and he deserves the mvp award? the mvp shouldnt go to a pitcher they dont even play 40 games.so that leaves 3 ppl that had a right to win jeter, dye, ortiz.
2006-11-22 08:40:45 · answer #5 · answered by Gannon J 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I had it
1- Justin Morneau BA-321 OB%-375 SLG-559 OPS-934
RPA-Run production Avg .292 - Twins win AL Central - FLD%-.994
2-Jermaine Dye BA-315 OB%-385 SLG-622 OPS-1007
RPA-.293 - Player of the year in AL, but, WS out of playoffs Range Factor(RF)-2.24 one of the highest in all of ML baseball for a full time corner OF
3-Joe Mauer BA-347 OB%-429 SLG-507 OPS-936
RPA-.258 - Amazing numbers from a catcher. Twins win AL Central - FLD%-.996
4-Derek Jeter - BA-343 OB%-417 SLG-483 OPS-900
RPA-.281 - Yankees win AL East - RF-4.14 ranks 23rd among full time ML shortstops
"Morneau got benched in july because he sucked" - Really? he hit .362 after June 8th the highest BA in the AL...He also played in 157 out of 162 games which was more games than Jeter played in...Ortiz is a DH , the award isn't the most valuable half a player...
2006-11-22 08:07:47 · answer #6 · answered by C_F_45 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Well, I for one am no longer going to associate myself with the DNC. They couldn't have presented a worse case scenario than what this sham was. It seems the DNC is totally committed to destroying itself. There was a time when they reflected the grass roots of this nation, but not anymore. They are going too far left for me. Yep, their presumptive leader is dead in all the states that matter in the G.E. It boggles the mind to think they have gotten so far off track. He will have a real black-eye (no pun intended) in November when he loses.
2016-05-22 16:01:25 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't think that Morneau was the right choice. I think it should have been "Big Papi". He's better than Justin. Way better. If he wasn't a DH ( Designated Hitter) he would have won 100% on that
2006-11-24 10:42:42 · answer #8 · answered by chop_suii13 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
no he really wasnt. Ortiz,jeter and even his teamate Mauer deserved it more.
2006-11-22 09:17:26 · answer #9 · answered by celtic 2991 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
right or wrong he is the joice.my question is who is the stupid writer who had jeter in the 6 slot.must be from boston.
2006-11-22 06:24:19 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋