In This Time of Losing, Could an MVP Emerge?
Today, Rob Neyer went over his list of potential American League MVP candidates. He’s obviously a big Red Sox guy (he does, after all, work for ESPN … and I think being a Red Sox fan is as helpful to employment there as being a no-power, no-plate-discipline middle infielder is to employment by the Twins).
So his conclusion? Dustin Pedroia!
A-Rod’s not going to win the award, for any number of reasons.
Hamilton’s fallen off everyone’s radar since the All-Star Game.
Cabrera hasn’t been on anyone’s radar since April. Same for Sizemore, who might actually be having the best season of them all.
It looks to me like there are only three viable candidates: Pedroia, Quentin and Morneau.
Except we’ve got some breaking news: Quentin’s season is probably over. In terms of the MVP, it is over.
Which leaves only Pedroia and Morneau. And with Pedroia’s Red Sox having a significantly better chance of reaching the playoffs than Morneau’s Twins, at this moment Pedroia’s the No. 1 candidate.
Morneau is the only player that he didn’t even bother to offhandedly dismiss, only stating that the Twins are, compared to the vaunted, awesome Red Sox, pretty crappy. But the thing is … I think he underestimates the Twins’ chances of making the playoffs.
Despite having played terribly on the RNC Road Trip, we’re still only a game and a half back. I know everyone’s really down on our chances right now (I know I am), and that 1.5 seems like a whole lot more — but think about it from the White Sox’ perspective. They saw we had this long road trip and it was their chance to put some distance between us and them. We played about as badly as possible during the trip … and we’re still right behind them. I talked to some White Sox fans today (an “advantage” of living in Chicago), and they continue to be terrified of the Twins while at the same time really worried that they couldn’t get more of a lead. And that’s without considering the loss of Quentin. So let’s not call the AL Central race over just yet. We’re not Fox News here.
But secondly, even if the Twins do manage to make it to the playoffs … could Morneau actually be an MVP candidate? Here’s how his numbers stack up against Pedroia:
Morneau: .311/.388/.516, 21 HR, 109 RBI, 40 2B, 85 R, 142 OPS+
Pedroia: .333/.378/.505, 17 HR, 76 RBI, 44 2B, 110 R, 127 OPS+
I don’t see how Pedroia’s numbers get him an MVP over Morneau if both teams make it to the playoffs. They’re quite simply … not as good. The runs and RBI come pretty close to evening out, and are mostly a function of where they bat in the lineup. I’ll take 4 more HR over 4 more 2B. And a higher OBP and SLG lead to an even higher OPS+ than Morneau had in his MVP 2006 season.
I still don’t think Morneau has a great case for MVP, but this season neither does anyone else. And Morneau’s just about our only offensive weapon — the same cannot be said for Pedroia. And there’s still some season left to play, before we get to see the National Media (located in Boston) invent an MVP award for one of their own.
The first step, though, is to make the playoffs. It’s time to right that ship, starting tonight. Go Twins.
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This might help.
J. Morneau homered to deep right, J. Mauer, A. Casilla and C. Gomez scored
Yeah, it was an awesome hit. Absolutely clobbered it.
I love to see that. Just about as much as I liked seeing Delmon’s diving catch. Afterwards he looked like he’d never done anything remotely like that and wasn’t about to do it again — even though he kind of liked it.
Damn, I really need DIRECTV.
I’m not going to pour over the MVP list, but how often is the award given to a player that doesn’t have a team making the playoffs or in the hunt?
Close to never. The way the voters see it, if the team didn’t make the playoffs, then the player wasn’t valuable enough.
I’m not going to go back year by year right now (maybe another time), but I don’t remember any case of a non-playoff team producing an MVP.
A-Rod won it when he was in Texas. That is the only instance I can remember in my life time. I would say it was less likely back in the day because there wasn’t much understanding of the more advanced stats. It was basically average, homers, RBI and maybe runs. Jeff Burroughs won it for the rangers in the 70s and I’m pretty sure that team didn’t make the playoffs, but they cleaned up in awards. Billy Martin was manager of the year, Burroughs the MVP Mike Hargrove rookie of the year and Fergie Jenkins was the CY Young.
Thank you sir. (I can’t believe I didn’t remember A-Rod won it with the Rangers.)