Top Honors

The perennial MVP debate gets a lot of attention, and I certainly don't need to beat the horse any deader. Here's the thing, numbers don't lie:

Mauer; avg: .367 hr: 26 rbi: 80 runs: 80 sb: 4
Jeter; avg: .330 hr: 17 rbi: 61 runs: 95 sb: 23

But as a famous sportscaster once [wisely] observed, statistics are like bikinis. They show a lot, but paraphrasing here, not everything. Catcher Joe's average might be helped by his truncated season, but he's had enough at bats over the minimum to sort of dilute that argument. DJ's runs benefit from his higher place in the order. The only clear blowout stat is stolen bases, with the [Yankee's] captain snagging an impressively high 23, his most since his failed 2006 MVP campaign, when he was beat out by another Twin also with the letters M, A, U, E, and R in his name. Nice insight, right?

Anyway, what I feel it boils down to is this: there shouldn't be preferential treatment for 'Lifetime Acheivement Award' consideration. And I'm saying this with the highest amount of man-love possible for Derek Jeter. The issue here is simply this: every player on the Minnesota Twins is equally valuable and their value could be quanitfied numerically at: 0. When you don't make the playoffs, no one ballplayer was valuable enough. I know it isn't fair to cast off a player because of the shortcomings of his team, but to what end was Mauer's value? There was no payoff, and so, retroactively, there wasn't sufficient value in Mauer's play. The bottom number line of Joe and Jeter are similar enough that the Yankee's forthcoming playoff run should seal the deal for Jeter's MVP.

And that's that.