News of Tuesday, November 21st
DMZ · November 21, 2006 at 11:26 am · Filed Under General baseball
Morneau is the AL MVP. I’d have voted for Jeter.
Alou signs 1 year, $8.5m deal
Juan Pierre gets a 5y, $45m deal. Boggle boggle.
Nintendo (and for that matter, Microsoft) have still not supplied USSM Labs with evaluation units
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Interesting: “Morneau received 15 first-place votes, eight second-place votes, three third-place votes and two fourth-place votes for a total of 320 points. Jeter, the runner up, received 12 first-place votes, 14 second-place votes and one fourth-place vote for 306 points.”
oh, and Frank Thomas came in 4th….
I know, I’ve looked at the voting patterns and I’m just baffled. Morneau’s not a horrible, Juan Gonzalez choice, but the way the vote broke down is strange.
I agree that Jeter definitely deserved to win. However what really suprised me was the gap between Jeter and third place finsher Ortiz with a gap of 112 points compared to the first-second place gap. I think Ortiz should have come in second.
does the BBWAA ever re-visit their voting system, a la the constant BCS tweaking?
Nintendo (and for that matter, Microsoft) have still not supplied USSM Labs with evaluation units
although I gather they have been better than the PS3 folks…
Morneau is a horrible, Gonzalez level choice. He wasn’t even one of the five most valuable players in the AL this year.
You can make a good case for Jeter, Mauer, Santana, or Ortiz. You can make an okay case for Sizemore or Dye. Morneau is in that next group with guys like Hafner, Ramirez, Guillen, and Thome, who clearly didn’t deserve one first place vote between them.
Well, I’m just surprised they didn’t go for one of the big-team candidates. Especially with a Yankee in the mix, although to be honest I’d have Jeter over Morneau for MVP.
This wasn’t mentioned in the news round up above, but I’m wondering what you guys think of keeping Garciaparra and Rowland-Smith over Chick, Harris and/or Bohn. I’m assuming no one really thought Bohn was worth a roster spot, but what about the others?
I wouldn’t have picked Jeter over anyone. Intellectual honesty doesn’t apply when discussing the Yankees.
Morneau is a fine choice. After all, the ballot specifically defines the “most valuable” player as the player, among players who play a defensive position and play for a team that makes (or almost makes) the playoffs, who finishes with the regular season with the most runs batted in.
Nah. Gonzalez level is just horrid. Morneau’s not a good defensive first baseman, but he’s not the immobile horror Juan Gonzalez was. In 1996, the difference between Alex and Juan was easily 60+ runs of total contribution. There’s no way the Monreau-Jeter gap is that huge.
I’m not saying it’s good. I think Jeter’s clearly the better choice. But 1996 was an amazingly horrible vote, far worse than this.
Jeter – 138 runs created, 80.5 VORP
Morneau – 121 runs created, 52.0 VORP
The difference between the two offensively is about 3 wins after a position adjustment is made. Toss in the fact that Jeter had one of the great clutch seasons of all time (which isn’t a skill, but is certainly valuable), and the difference is even larger than that.
For 2006, Jeter was probably worth about 8 wins and Morneau was worth between 4 to 5.
You’re right that its not A-Rod/Juan Gone in ‘96, but that was probably the worst vote ever. This is still a debacle.
1996
Alex – 111.8 VORP
Juan – 62.2 VORP
The difference there’s 5 wins with positional adjustments, and not considering that Alex was a good defensive shortstop and Juan sucked defensively. That’s at least a whole extra win over this year, and I’d argue more than that.
If Morneau as MVP is a debacle, 1996 is Double Debacle. That’s all I’m saying.
I’ve given up on these awards. Why vote? Just give it to the guy who drove in the most runs and get it over with.
For those keeping score, I’d have picked Mauer.
I’m suprised more people aren’t astonished with the Juan Pierre signing. Nine million per year for someone of his offensive skills sets an unreal low end for the market.
Santana ended up with more votes than Alex. From the NY Times:
“the closest M.V.P. vote since 2001, when Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki beat Jason Giambi, then with the Oakland A’s, 289-281.
Morneau, Jeter and Ortiz were followed by Oakland’s Frank Thomas, the Chicago White Sox’ Jermaine Dye, the Twins’ Joe Mauer, Santana, Cleveland’s Travis Hafner, the Angels’ Vladimir Guerrero and Detroit’s Carlos Guillen. Morneau, Jeter, Ortiz and Dye were named on all 28 ballots. Jeter received 14 second-place votes, one fourth-place vote and one vote for sixth. The Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez, who won the M.V.P. in 2005, ranked 13th in the voting, with one vote for fifth place, two for eighth and one for 10th.”
#16– I think Pierre got hashed out yesterday in ‘Monday’s signings, rumors’
I agree that when considering the MVP award as a “best season by any player” award, Morneau falls way short. I think even if you try to take the “Most Valuable” part really seriously, the Twins would have been just as big a disaster without Mauer or Santana as they would have been without Morneau. So he doesn’t “deserve” it in any meaningful sense.
But I’m trying to get behind the notion of the MVP as an inherently and intentionally subjective phenomenon. A groundswell of excitement, etc., and for me that means that this year (since voting happens before the playoffs), the award basically HAS to go to a Twin, because of their insane run to take the division. And during that insane run Morneau and Santana carried that team. Looking at it like that, I can feel pretty happy about how it all played out.
If we think about it as a most-RBI-by-a-non-DH, well, then I’m as infuriated as the rest of you, because that’s really, really annoying. But I’m going to choose to pretend it was more about the combination of the Twins meteoric rise and Morneau carrying the major part of the offensive load during that time.
But I probably would have voted for either Ortiz or Santana while secretly believing Jeter probably actually deserved it, but that it was close enough that I could justify stiffing him and feeling pretty good about that.
Any update on the possible Reed trade?
I’d vote
Mauer
Santana
Jeter
Dye
After that you have to throw, Ramirez, Ortiz, Hafner, Thome, Guerrero, Sizemore, and Carlos Guillen into the mix. Somewhere down the line after these guys (but ahead of Frank Thomas) I have Morneau.
You can’t even begin defend this unless he plays defense like J.T. Snow and Ozzie Smith all rolled into one.
As “bad” a season as he had, and as much as he makes… I still miss Alex.
I’ve given up on these awards. Why vote? Just give it to the guy who drove in the most runs and get it over with.
This is my sentiment exactly.
I’m just stoked for a BC boy to get it. Oh Canada!
By the way, I don’t necessarily think he deserved it. I would have voted for Willie Bloomquist personally.
Dave – I would rate the seasons that Hafner and Ortiz had about equally perhaps even giving the edge to Hafner. Why do you favor Ortiz over Hafner?
It was Santana, but I would have lived with Jeter or Mauer. As it stands, the winner was the third best player on his own team. This is a bigger joke than the NL MVP, which I think itself is fairly described as ‘grotesque’.
Jeez, given the way the market’s shaping up, the FO better offer Ichiro a contract extension ASAP. With Pierre getting 9 mil/season, superstar centerfielders aren’t getting any cheaper.
Jeter may have deserved the MVP by a slight edge by what he did on the field. Off the field he did nothing to help A-Rod through his struggles with the media and the fans. He is so worshipped in NY, that all he would have needed to do was open his mouth a few times and say “Lay off my man over at 3rd base. He is the best player on this team and we all go through our ups and downs.”.
Leader? Yeah, right.
Hey, he’s ten times more of a leader than anyone on the Mariners. At least he’s not overeacting like A-Rod and Ichiro.
I totally disagree with that comment about Morneau not being as terrible a selection as JuanGone in ‘96, and I say that with total homer bias regarding just how badly Alex got jobbed 10 years ago.
Yes, the disparity in runs- and wins-created numbers in ‘96 was larger than this year’s. But when you’re judging this travesty in the pantheon of terrible MVP choices, the fact that Morneau isn’t even close to the most valuable player on his own team pretty much makes up for it.
What about Ichiro winning in 2001 over A-Rod or Giambi? Or Bret Boone for that matter. These awards can’t be taken seriously.
#30 – How exactly are Arod and Ichiro overreacting? And to what?
Oh Ichiro about the “Seattle doesn’t have a leader Wah, Wah.” and A-Rod “Oh they’re booing me Wah.” Why doesn’t he step up and prove he doesn’t deserve to be booed. As for Ichiro why doesn’t he step up and be the leader. No complaining if you can do something about it.
#26, I think the key is games played. Hafner just missed too much time, otherwise he would be a fine enough choice.
I don’t see how any AL MVP selection other than Santana was defensible. He was far and away the most valuable player in the league.
On my ballot, Jeter’s defense pushed him down quite a ways – I put him behind Guillen. And Hafner – I don’t see how Hafner ends up on the bottom half of any ballot.
Ortiz did have those sick WPA numbers, blowing away everyone else in baseball. He was Mr. Clutch.
36. How does his defense push him down? He is probably the best defensive SS in the game plus he hustles on every play so people get mad at him if he makes an error on an incredibly tough play that most SS don’t try for.
oh, Coach.
39. What did I do?
I blame our school system.
extra homework:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/jon_weisman/02/03/defense.metrics/index.html
http://www.mankato-freepress.com/columnistETOMA/local_story_114132750.html
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5674456?FSO1&ATT=HCP>1=8297
Or even Dave’s own, quite good “Evaluating Defense“
Travis Hafner didn’t play enough. If he had, he would have been a no brainer.
Coach, there are any number of places you can get explained to you why Derek Jeter is not the best defensive short stop in the game. I’ll assume for now that you’re distrustful of statistical evidence, though, and point you directly here. He’s not terrible, but he’s certainly not particularly good–for a short stop.
He does hustle though, I’ll give him that.
Ah! Except for the absurdity of arguing over HOF selections (done with a dart board, clearly) scolling through arguments about a close MVP selection makes me want to feign deafness when certain people begin talking about baseball – already the amount of pointless manure throwing on this thread has negated any of the possible interesting reasons to have it in the first place (”It’s a bad chooice, but where did the bad votes come from? Is there now a slight anti-rich team/free agent bias that shows in close races? Does the infantile RBI fascination that the typical, therefore infantile by definition, SI-level “sportswriter” still wield its old-time power, as the same groups “up the middle” bias ruined many 40s-50s MVP votes?)
And a special “piss off” to the from left fielder offering up the Ichiro slur.
Back to the cave – I can’t talk about the Mariners, or root for the team, while Hargrove infests the dugout.
Any update on the possible Reed trade?
I’m amazed it took 21 posts to get to this question, as right now this is what I’m more interested in then the MVP voting or PMR spreadsheets. Rampant speculation all over the place. I want some facts.
But I suppose we’re still in “it’s not finished” land eh? Better then “it’s not happening” land I suppose. Maybe.
Dave,
I expected to hear in todays news about a trade involving Reed as you hinted to last night. Any new word or has this gone the way of the USFL?
the M’s just didn’t want to overshadow the MVP announcement
If it made the Oregonian I’d be surprised.
47: And I’m amazed that it took another 26 posts for someone to acknowledge the question. Thanks.
While I laugh at the selection of Morneau, who wasn’t even the MVP of his own team, I’d thrilled to see Jeter NOT win. I don’t like the Yankees, I don’t like Jeter and in some way this is cosmic karma for the gold gloves he won while being a below average SS.
That said, I think Jeter and Santana were the only really good choices for MVP this year.
the complete vote totals are up
I think Santanas season was unparalelled even by a hitter. It’s somewhat difficult to compare hitter vs. pitcher but no one deserved the award more than Johan IMO. Had I had a vote:
Santana
Jeter
Mauer
Ortiz
Or is it Ortiz then Mauer…Close for me.
Either way this is somewhat like if Edgar had won it in 2001, except that Edgar came close to deserving it other years that he played. 2001 is an interesting parallel if you compare Ichiro to Mauer and Boone to Morneau in respect to Mauer being onbase for Morneau to drive him in and the .350 BA…They are not alike in that Mauer and Morneau both didn’t have 200 hits where Ichiro and Boone both did. Obviously I expect it to be very difficult for a C to ever achieve 200 hits, but really 181 is just as solid as 200+ when you consider Mauer’s defensive position. The M’s didn’t have a Santana in 2001 and there the parallel ends.
Ichiro finished 3rd in the AL West MVP race then.
21 of 28 voters had Johan on their ballot. It’s hard for me to believe that 25% of the voters did not even think Johan was one of the 10 most valuable players.
It is being said over at LoL that Jason Chuchill is saying either Henry Owens or Matt Lindstrom, who were just traded to the marlins from the mets, will be the Reed return… Just adding fuel to the rumor fire!
Nah…I wouldn’t have argued against Boone deserving it in 2001 had he won. Boone’s year was superior in almost every way to Morneau’s. I’m glad Ichiro won instead though. Too bad Twins fans can’t be glad years down the road when Morneau’s long gone and Mauers still plugging away behind the plate that Mauer won it…If a hitter was going to get it it probably should have been Jeter though.
I went in search of the most Ungodly stats for 2006 awhile back and figured OPS. was one of the best ways to find this. Morneau was 9th in the AL behind Mauer (7th) and Jeter was 15th. The top 5:
Hafner
Ramirez
Ortiz
Thome
Dye
Another thing I like to look at is TB + BB Morneau’s 11th but Jeter and Mauer aren’t above him. With Mauer being a catcher it only makes sense he’s not going to place high on this, but his 343 in 521 AB was surpassed in less AB by Thome, Hafner and Ramirez.
Ortiz 474
Sizemore 427
Texiera 412
Thome 400
Hafner 399
Dye 394
A-Rod 389
Ibanez 388
Guerrero 385
Wells 385
Morneau 384
Ramirez 378
When I started looking at all this I expected it to make the idea clearer to me on who should be MVP, but there is no clear choice among AL hitters. However nothing I’ve looked at puts Morneau in even the top 5 aside from RBI…Clearly had Hafner put up the numbers he did over another 50-120 ABs he’d be easier to choose.
In the NL all the things I looked at showed Pujols right in front of Howard, so the voting seems a bit retarded to me on that as well.
Another news:
OF T.J. Bohn was claimed off waivers by the Atlanta Braves.
Anyone miss him?
Derek “Just Past A Diving” Jeter.
Not that he’s not a great OFFENSIVE player, but I have never seen anyone’s else’s defense so consistently overrated.
He’s a middling defender at best, just from watching him. Just because a player dives for balls and gets his uniform dirty does not make him a good defender. Have we learned nothing from Princess Willie?
A little question:
When did the writers receive their votes and when did they send it (deadline)?