Here's an article by Keith Law, insider to ESPN:

Quote:

I think all carping about the NL MVP voters getting their choice wrong must immediately cease. The AL's voters missed out on identifying the most valuable Twin, never mind wrapping their heads around a whole league.

The reality of baseball is that a great offensive player at an up-the-middle position is substantially more valuable than a slightly better hitter at a corner position. And when that up-the-middle player is one of the best fielders at his position in baseball, there's absolutely no comparison. Joe Mauer was more valuable than Justin Morneau this past season.

Mauer had a 54-point edge in OBP over Morneau, which overwhelms the advantage Morneau had in slugging percentage (a 52-point edge), and he is arguably the best-fielding catcher in the game when you consider all aspects of catching. Catchers who field and hit the way Mauer does are extremely valuable, just as shortstops who hit like Derek Jeter does and play passable defense are extremely valuable. First basemen who hit like Morneau just shouldn't win MVP awards in years when there are Mauers and Jeters and other candidates to choose from.

Even going by the stats that the voters have favored for as long as the MVP award has existed, Morneau's season wasn't all that impressive. He tied for 12th in the AL in homers. He was second in RBI -- seven behind David Ortiz -- and just nine ahead of the least clutch player to ever be clutch, Alex Rodriguez. He was seventh in batting average, a few miles south of Mauer and Jeter, the other major MVP candidate. I have a hard time fathoming why any voter would put Morneau at the top of his ballot with so many obviously better candidates -- Mauer, Jeter, Ortiz, Jermaine Dye, unanimous Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana or the criminally neglected Carlos Guillen (the best player on the AL pennant winner) -- and in reality, more than half the voters did just that.

Incidentally, the following voters failed miserably:

• The one who put Jeter sixth.
• The one who put Mauer 10th ... and the five who left him off their ballots entirely.
• The three who put Frank Thomas second.
• The one who put A.J. Pierzynski 10th.

And while we're at it, how the heck did Thomas -- the third-best designated hitter in the American League -- end up fourth in the voting? It's just more evidence that the bulk of this year's voters didn't take into consideration what is actually valuable in baseball: Players who hit and play good defense up the middle are the most valuable position players in the game. The NL had only one such candidate this year (Carlos Beltran), so it's understandable that that award went to a corner bat. It's time for some of these voters to put aside their fantasy-baseball mentality -- one that assumes that RBI measure something important and that OBP is a hip-hop song from the early 1990s -- and to reevaluate how they go about voting for the MVP.


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