SB Nation 2006 Awards: Most Valuable Player

by Jesse on Nov 7, 2006 11:47 PM EST in News

Front-page contributors to SB Nation websites were asked to cast ballots after the season for the awards we're all used to seeing. Here is the other award handed out with interest to Twins fans.

American League Most Valuable Player: Joe Mauer

Talk about a surprise! For Twins fans, this isn't necessarily out of order as it wouldn't be most of our first choices. Joe Mauer is one of three Twins who deserved some credit for MVP, and it looks like the rest of SB Nation agreed which Twins deserved that credit.
Points Name 175 Joe Mauer 152 Derek Jeter 127 David Ortiz 98 Jermaine Dye 81 Justin Morneau 80 Johan Santana 75 Travis Hafner 62 Grady Sizemore 54 Frank Thomas 33 Vladamir Guerrero
All in all, there were 26 players who received votes, but any player beneath Guerrero (number ten in MVP balloting) was a dubious vote at best. You will notice that three Twins pierce the Top 10, as do two Indians. Surprisingly there are no Tigers, although four players from Detroit did receive votes.

The largest surprise isn't that Mauer won, or that someone beat Derek Jeter, but that Frank Thomas came in ninth! One first place vote, two seconds and one fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth. This is the player who, for $500,000 guaranteed, hit .270/.381/.545 with 39 homers and 114 RBI, smack dab in the middle of a sub-par Athletic offense. I shudder to imagine where Oakland would have been without the threat of The Big Hurt's bat in the middle of that order.

National League Most Valuable Player: Albert Pujols

Um, yeah. No real surprise here. The only other real, legitimate threat to take this prize would have been Ryan Howard, but he was sitting at home watch the playoffs in October, and that seems to make a big difference in how people vote.
Points Name 416 Albert Pujols 264 Ryan Howard 190 Carlos Beltran 185 Miguel Cabrera 172 Lance Berkman
We're stopping at five in the NL, because only one other player received a first place vote (Alfonso Soriano), and he didn't even clear 80 points.

Pujols had another stellar year, batting .331/.431/.671 (YES, HE SLUGGED .671!!), with 49 homers and 137 RBI. His main competition, Howard, hit .313/.425/.659 with 58 homers and 149 RBI.

Who would you have voted for? Does Joe Mauer deserve an MVP award (as fake as it is from a bunch of baseball nerds/fanatics/obsessives) over other Twins Justin Morneau and Johan Santana?

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No surprise to me

Picking Mauer over Jeter seems to be an easy decision to me. Most of the local and national debate has been Jeter vs. Morneau, which is a tough call since they play such different roles on their teams (much like Mauer vs. Morneau is a tough call). In comparing Mauer and Jeter, what exactly does Jeter do better? Both play a difficult defensive position, but Mauer plays the tougher position and is above average defensively, while I would argue that Jeter is average. Mauer is higher in BA, OPB. I'm not sure about slugging, but they are at least comparable, no? I've read that Jeters VORP is higher than Mauers, and am curious as to how that can be. More at bats? Was a replacement catcher better than a replacement SS this year?

tborg

by tborg on Nov 8, 2006 12:27 PM EST reply actions

Jeter...

...had a huge edge over Mauer in playing time this year, so that was a big part in the difference between their VORP. Also, Mauer's appearances at DH have a much higher replacement level than C or SS.

Also, VORP only accounts for offense. I don't think it's outrageous to say that Mauer is about 10 runs better than Jeter on defense.

by ubelmann on Nov 8, 2006 1:48 PM EST up reply actions

Mauer

Mauer has a much higher Vorp than Morneau, which the nerdsespected, but Jeter's is also muh higher than Mauer's.

Santana thugh had the highest Vorp in the AL of any player.

"Baseball is great because you can't take a knee or kill the clock. You have to put the ball over the plate and give the other guy his damn chance." C Stengel

by AdamOnFirst on Nov 8, 2006 12:36 PM EST reply actions