Where is Derek Jeter's Recognition?

[actionjackson]

According to OPS+, in the modern era among qualifying hitters, only Mike Piazza's 1997 season beats Mauer's 2009 season for catchers. If you open it up to all the leagues (1871-2009), Deacon White's 1875 season also beats Mauer and Cal McVey's 1871 season ties him. Of course McVey (29 games, very short season back then), and White (80 games) didn't have to face the rigours of a 162 game schedule, did they? A season for the ages indeed.

[Jeffy25]

AJ, you the bomb diggidty

[200tang]

diggidty

word up.

[Jeffy25]

If you do a simple match of MVP's Team vs Pennant winning team you will see a very strong trend that has dwindled to a far less significant factor now.

i'll say this much, many fans, writers, and voters argue the meaning of value. In the case of the award, the rules cleary state the winner doesn't have to be from a playoff team. It is looking for the best overall valuable player in the league that year. In this case, that is Mauer. The most valuable player on the team that won the most games would be Tex, or possibly even Jeter. Jeter technically had a better year in terms of overall contributions, Tex had the better year at the plate.

but you have to remember. When the votes were casted, the Twins and Yankees were just as far along as each other in the playoffs.

And again, it clearly states, player does not have to come from a playoff team. Simply the most valuable, this year, it's Mauer.

[HoustonGM]

And Mauer does, in fact, come from a playoff team anyway. When the Twins won the playoff game for the division, that shut up the one argument that had been repeatedly parroted throughout September against Mauer as MVP. There's really no legitimate argument at this point, unless you want to completely mangle the definition of "value" beyond all recognition.

[actionjackson]

Furthering the point: (From 1901-2009) Jeter's 2009 season ranks 129th all-time amongst his fellow SS in OPS+, while Teixeira's 2009 season ranks 299th all-time amongst his fellow 1B. Mauer's is #2 all-time amongst his fellow users of the tools of ignorance. It deserves to be celebrated. It deserves to be recognized. Period.

[OldYankFan]

Morgan and Lynn were both deserving on their own merits.

Just about all the arguements that you have applied to Jeter would apply to Joe Morgan.

Joe was surrounded by HOF caliber players: Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Perez plus Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster, Dave Concepcion and Cesar Geronimo. Joe played 2nd base not quite as demanding a position as Jeter's SS. Joe was a table setter, a run scorer, like Jeter. He was a better base stealer, less power. The one real stand out Stat of Morgan in 1975 was 132 walks. He had 30 more walks than Mike Schmidt. The Base on Balls pushed up Morgans OBP and OPS.

As for Lynn, You can make a very stong case for Reggie Jackson, George Scott, John Mayberry, Rod Carew, Rollie Fingers, Jim Plamer or Thurman Munson in 1975. It was the Red Sox winning that put Lynn in the forefront with 97% of the first place votes. (Fingers from the other division champ got the rest of the 1st place vote - in 1975 no writers voted for any player #1 in the MVP vote, in either league, that did not win a division)

Let me make this very clear. Joe Mauer is deserving of the MVP award. Period.

My point has always been, that in the past, the best player from the best team would get the award. The Yankees had the best team (based on regular season record), so in the past Jeter or Tex or ever Mariano Rivera would split the vote. A look at the 1975 National MVP vote where only Joe Morgan and Pete Rose got any 1st place votes is a fine example of how MVP voters use to think.

[HoustonGM]

Just about all the arguements that you have applied to Jeter would apply to Joe Morgan.

Except for the issue of Joe Morgan actually being the most valuable player in the league.

As for Lynn, You can make a very stong case for Reggie Jackson, George Scott, John Mayberry, Rod Carew, Rollie Fingers, Jim Plamer or Thurman Munson in 1975. It was the Red Sox winning that put Lynn in the forefront with 97% of the first place votes. (Fingers from the other division champ got the rest of the 1st place vote - in 1975 no writers voted for any player #1 in the MVP vote, in either league, that did not win a division)

Okay. My pick for MVP that year would be Rod Carew. Fred Lynn won as a very deserving candidate, though. And, remember, again, I never claimed that quality of a player's team wasn't an influence.

My point has always been, that in the past, the best player from the best team would get the award.

Except when he didn't?

Sometimes, the best player on the best team IS the most valuable player. Sometimes, yes, being on the best team boosts a player and he wins over a more deserving player. Sometimes, the best player on the best team doesn't get the award.

You keep pointing to examples when the best player on the best team won the award as evidence that this was somehow the case every single time. But, again, sometimes that player WAS the most deserving player, AND there are tons of examples of times when it DIDN'T happen, so I don't know what the point is of continually repeating certain examples that support your "position" while continually ignoring the examples that don't.

The Yankees had the best team (based on regular season record), so in the past Jeter or Tex or ever Mariano Rivera would split the vote.

We know this how? Seems like wild speculation. Again, in the past, the best player on the best team sometimes doesn't get the award.

A look at the 1975 National MVP vote where only Joe Morgan and Pete Rose got any 1st place votes is a fine example of how MVP voters use to think.

Joe Morgan was absolutely the Most Valuable Player in the National League that year. That is not a case of them using team record to justify giving it to the best player on the best team. Joe Morgan happened to be the best player on the best team while also being the best player in the league. When you lead the league in OPS+ by a large margin, while playing excellent defense at second base, and providing excellent value on the basepaths, chances are, you're the most valuable player in the league. His .466 on-base percentage that year was 60 points higher than anybody else. And Morgan was even BETTER the following year in 1976 where he ALSO took home the MVP award - not because of his team, but because he was the best player in the league.

[HoustonGM]

Joe Morgan of 1975/1976 has more in common with 2009 Joe Mauer than 2009 Derek Jeter. Morgan, like Mauer, was the best offensive player in the league while playing an up the middle position excellently.

[Jeffy25]

what would you argue should be the closest race of mvp picks ever? like a year where both players were neck and neck arguable

[actionjackson]

Just about all the arguements that you have applied to Jeter would apply to Joe Morgan.

Um, No.

Joe was surrounded by HOF caliber players: Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Perez plus Ken Griffey Sr., George Foster, Dave Concepcion and Cesar Geronimo. Joe played 2nd base not quite as demanding a position as Jeter's SS. Joe was a table setter, a run scorer, like Jeter. He was a better base stealer, less power. The one real stand out Stat of Morgan in 1975 was 132 walks. He had 30 more walks than Mike Schmidt. The Base on Balls pushed up Morgans OBP and OPS.

Yes, "Little" Joe was surrounded by HOF caliber talent, but he made them look like chopped liver in those two seasons. Derek Jeter, while a very good player, has never done this. Jeter had a case for the MVP in 1999, but it was very close between him and Nomar Garciaparra, Roberto Alomar, Manny Ramirez and Jeter's teammate Bernie Williams. How Ivan Rodriguez won the award is a mystery to me, but whatever. The point is that Jeter, while a very good player, has never been the dominant player that Morgan was in the '75 and '76 seasons if one compares him against both his teammates and the AL. In 1975 Joe was head and shoulders above the rest of the NL. In 1976? Remember the first Gulf War in 1991? In 1976, Joe was the U.S. and the rest of MLB was Iraq. That's how great the disparity was. Want more sport-centric examples? OK, how about Wayne Gretzky in the early 1980's, Tiger Woods, and Roger Federer before Rafael Nadal came along. Morgan utterly dominated his sport in those two seasons. Nobody came close to him.

As for Lynn, You can make a very stong case for Reggie Jackson, George Scott, John Mayberry, Rod Carew, Rollie Fingers, Jim Plamer or Thurman Munson in 1975. It was the Red Sox winning that put Lynn in the forefront with 97% of the first place votes. (Fingers from the other division champ got the rest of the 1st place vote - in 1975 no writers voted for any player #1 in the MVP vote, in either league, that did not win a division)

Can we at least agree on the fact that in order to deserve the MVP, a player must be the best player in the league at his position? If so, we can say adios to Mr. October as he is at least behind current Yankee broadcaster: Ken Singleton and the father of everyone's favourite Satan/scapegoat of the steroid era: Bobby Bonds. George Scott is at least behind John Mayberry and perhaps Boog Powell. There is some question as to whether Rollie Fingers was the best reliever on his own team, due to Jim Todd's strong season. I like strikeouts from a reliever though, so I'll take the handle-bar mustachioed one. But, Goose Gossage squishes both of them like bugs, so Fingers is out. I hate to do this because he is your favourite player, but Fiore Gino Tennaci (otherwise known as Gene Tenace) had a better year than Thurman Munson in 1975, so Munson's out.

That leaves us with Mayberry, Carew, Palmer and the guy you forgot about: Toby Harrah (provided of course that we can help wean you off your habit of worshipping the holy trinity of AVG, HR, and RBI, which are nice, but can cause some players to be overrated and some to be underrated unnecessarily) as well as the guy who won: Fred Lynn.

Jim Palmer was far and away the best pitcher in the majors that year, but I have a huge distaste for pitchers winning the MVP. In my view the MVP is for the hitters. I mean would you give the Cy Young to a hitter...um, nope. So, why do pitchers get considered for this award? In my book, unless a pitcher blows the field of hitters away during a season, he should not get the award, and relief pitchers should never, ever, ever get it because I don't care how well they pitch, they can't possibly have more value than the best starters in the league. Palmer did not really blow any of Carew, Harrah, Lynn, or Mayberry out of the water. So scratch him off.

Ultimately I think the one who got jobbed in all this was Rodney Cline Carew. I think you can make the case, once you factor in everything including what defensive positions these guys played, and the fact that he swiped 35 bags and was caught just nine times, that he deserved it. But he played on the team with the worst record of these 4 and that unfortunately does hold sway with the voters. The player that stood head and shoulders above his teammates offensively was John Mayberry. His team went 91-71, so why not? Well, the Oakland Athletics were in the last of their 5 straight division title seasons and not making the playoffs as you've pointed out does sway the voters. Harrah's the 4th best and on a losing team as well, so it wasn't going to be him. Fred Lynn was the only player in these four whose team went to the playoffs. While I consider that argument to be a crock of s**t, I can see how it might sway the voters. My vote would've gone to 1) Carew, 2) Lynn, and 3) Mayberry in 1975. Fred Lynn was not as bad a choice as you're making it out to be though. Certainly the BBWAA has s**t the bed far worse than that: see 1987: Bell, George (and I'm a lifelong Jays fan) and Dawson, Andre (loved him with the Expos, but c'mon). Never have I seen the writers so completely lose their s**t over HR and RBI.

Alan Trammell, Wade Boggs, and Paul Molitor all easily outclassed Bell and Dwight Evans and ROY Mark McGwire were no slouches either. You could make a case that every team in the NL, including the Cubs, had a player that was more valuable to their team than Dawson was to the Cubs. Rick Sutcliffe was the Cubs MVP that year, on a staff that was otherwise either injured or inexperienced or just plain bad.

There is no greater example of the need to look past HR, and RBI than Andre Dawson's 1987 "MVP" season and the fact that he was on a last place team makes his selection abominable. Yes he was first in TB, HR, and RBI *yawn*. His other appearances on the leaderboard? 6th in SLG, 10th in OPS, tied for 5th in Hits, not in the top 10 in OPS+, and various other finishes, none of which were too spectacular or awe inspiring. The most damning stat that he had that year was that he tied for 6th in Outs Made, which is not a stat you want an MVP to be close to the lead in and he had an abysmal .328 OBP. Tony Gwynn, Eric Davis, Dale Murphy, Ozzie Smith, Tim Raines, Darryl Strawberry, Jack Clark and Mike Schmidt would all have been much better choices than Dawson, but the writers couldn't stop drooling over the HR and RBI totals. Ugh.

Let me make this very clear. Joe Mauer is deserving of the MVP award. Period.

More deserving than Tex or Jeter? Because that's what started this whole debate.

My point has always been, that in the past, the best player from the best team would get the award. The Yankees had the best team (based on regular season record), so in the past Jeter or Tex or ever Mariano Rivera would split the vote. A look at the 1975 National MVP vote where only Joe Morgan and Pete Rose got any 1st place votes is a fine example of how MVP voters use to think.

Joe Mauer's team made the playoffs, which is all that should really count if we're using the whole "Yeah, but how did his team do?" argument. The playoffs are a complete crapshoot where the best team doesn't always win. This year the best team did win, but a look back through all of baseball history tells us that this most definitely does not always happen and given that 8 teams are now involved in the playoffs, the chances of this happening are far less than they were in the good ole days before divisional play. To put it another way, to pre-suppose that the team with the best record the day after the end of the regular season will be hoisting the trophy when all is said and done is foolhardy and therefore it makes more sense to take all the teams that make the playoffs as equals, if making the playoffs should even be one of the criteria. The 1975 vote should have been unanimous for Joe Morgan. It just was not close.

On a side note, congratulations to the writers for getting the AL Cy Young award right. They managed to overlook the fact that Zack Greinke's team finished last in the division, and he finished tied for 7th in wins. Probably has more to do with the fact that nobody won 20 in the the majors, but what an absolutely dominant season. Whoa! Just three years ago, it looked like he was going to flame out and he had completely lost interest due in part to an anxiety disorder. Now look at him. Fabulous. One down, three to go BBWAA: Lincecum, Mauer and Pujols. Baby steps guys (and girls). You can do it.

[HoustonGM]

what would you argue should be the closest race of mvp picks ever? like a year where both players were neck and neck arguable

There's a bunch. I wouldn't know where to begin.

In my view the MVP is for the hitters. I mean would you give the Cy Young to a hitter...um, nope. So, why do pitchers get considered for this award?

Because the award is for player, not just hitter, and because the rules specifically say that pitchers are eligible.

[200tang]

I think the MVP should be for hitters only, but until (yeah, right ) the rules change I'll still vote for pitchers with my imaginary votes

[ewing6]

I think the MVP should be for hitters only, but until (yeah, right ) the rules change I'll still vote for pitchers with my imaginary votes

I love imaginary votes. Casey Mcgee won my imaginary ROY award.

[OldYankFan]

what would you argue should be the closest race of mvp picks ever? like a year where both players were neck and neck arguable

The closet race, vote wise, was 1979 in the National League, a dead tie between Keith Hernadez and Willie Stargell. They were name Co-MVPs.