The American League Most Valuable Player was announced yesterday, and the winner was Dustin Pedroia. For the second time in 3 years, it should have been Joe Mauer. This time he finished 4th instead of 6th in 2006, so I suppose that’s progress. Still, it’s frustrating that voters (even local ones) overlook Mauer when preparing their ballots.
Morneau finished second again which just shows how much the writers love the RBI. He finished second in the league in RBIs and that was largely due to the fact that he came up with more runners on base than any other player in baseball (558) – and it wasn’t even close. I believe 2nd place was like 507. The reason Morneau came up with so many men on base – Mauer hits in front of him.
Mauer should have won because he led the league in batting average, win probability added (a formula that assigns percentage of team wins based on that players performance) and finishing 2nd in on base percentage to an oft-injured Designated Hitter. The two most valuable things in baseball are best represented by Joe Mauer – on base percentage and good defense at a "skill" position. Skill positions are those that are difficult for the average player to play – Catcher, Shortstop, 2nd base and Centerfield (ranked in my order of difficulty). The fact of the matter is that if you’re evaluating the most valuable (the hardest to replace) player in the league, it had to be the catcher who led the league in win probability added even though he played in less games due to the fact he is a catcher.
It was disappointing to see the local beat writer for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune give Mauer a 5th place vote. He was sucked in by the love of RBIs, and just doesn’t get that someone has to get on base for your single to knock someone in. It’s pretty clear that a lot of baseball writers also base their votes on the last few games of the season. Sure, they matter, but so do the games in April. You have to take the whole season into account when judging the MVP. Pedroia wasn’t a horrible choice, but the voters could’ve done better.
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