Jeter Gets Jipped

The results of the AL MVP have settled in, and while I don't agree with the outcome, I've made my peace with it. Morneau is deserving of the honor, but Jeter was more deserving. In the post I made right after the winner was announced, I made the comment that Morneau was probably the most valuable player to his team. After seeing the results of the vote, I'm rethinking that position.
But first, how does anyone justify casting a 6th place vote for Jeter? I'm not even sure I agree with someone casting a 4th place vote for Jeter, but come on, a 6th place vote? That's absurd. I'd love to hear the justification on that one. How does this person even get a vote? I said the same thing about the guy that cast a vote for Walt Weiss on his HOF ballot. There needs to be some kind of criteria that these baseball writers need to meet in order to cast these ballots because some of them aren't demonstrating a solid understanding of the game. I'm talking about you Furman Bisher! Don't think I forgot about you. I'm also not sure I buy into the point system that correlates to each vote. The value of a first place vote is 14 points. A second place vote earns 9 points. That's a pretty big discrepancy. Jeter had more total first and second place votes than Morneau, 26 to 23. More writers felt Jeter was a better player. But I can do the math. Even if you make first place worth 10 points, Jeter still comes up 2 points short. I'm just criticizing the system and some of its voters. It definitely doesn't sound like an objective vote. Can you say Yankee-hater? 6th place???
Morneau ended up with a great season, but he wasn't nearly as consistent as Jeter. Jeter did it all year long. Morneau turned it on in early June. What value was Morneau adding when the Twins were struggling? Not much as the Twins were pretty far back in the Central. I won't dispute that Morneau was "arguably" the league's best player from June 8th through the end of the season. That accounts for less than two-thirds of the season! The award isn't for the MVP of the final few months. It's for the MVP of the entire season. To me, Jeter was consistent all year long. Some even feel that Morneau wasn't even the most valuable player on his team. The run the Twins made had as much to do with Mauer, Liriano, and Santana, as it did with Justin Morneau. It didn't help Jeter's cause that the Twins had such a great finish while the Yankees won the East going away. We can credit Boston's poor play for that one.
As Yankeefan1 pointed out in his comments on my last post, Morneau had 2 teammates finish in the top 7, Johan Santana and Joe Mauer. That means 3 Twins finished in the top 7. Let's not forget about Francisco Liriano either? If he stayed healthy, you might have seen 4 Twins in the top 10. The second highest Yankee was Alex Rodriguez, who finished 13th. Yes that's right. A-Rod? You can argue that the Twins would have fared equally as well if Morneau didn't perform as he did. You can probably argue the same points about the Yankees lineup being so potent. But Jeter was the catalyst and kept the team together when the Yankees lost 3 of their key players (Sheffield, Cano, Matsui) for a significant period of time in 2006. It's a great lineup up-and-down, but if you removed Jeter from the Yankee lineup, I don't care what you say, they don't do as well.
In the end, I'm sure Morneau got a little extra love for being a power guy. Hitting HRs is sexy. Stealing bases, moving runners around, and being a complete player apparently isn't. Just ask David Ortiz, he'll tell ya. There's an ill-conceived notion out there that it's all about the longball. Silly rabbits.
I don't want to take anything away from the great year that Morneau and the Twins had. Morneau did have an MVP-caliber season. Jeter just had a better one.
J