Originally Posted by
RyGuy45
LOL at the sudden "Jeter got screwed in '06" talk the last two pages.
Morneau had as much a right for that award as anyone. Could it have gone either way, like many MVP races? Sure. But he won it and the Twins went on that 2nd half tear. No one got screwed, and it's not like almighty Jeter lost out to David Eckstein.
According to some though, Jeter should win the legacy MVP this year too
I'd like to hear that argument.
Morneau was awarded the MVP mainly due to his high RBI total. Unfortunately, RBI totals are a product of number of opportunities not performance. Jeteroutperformed Morneau by a wide margin in situational hitting (Jeter .389 avg RISP, Morneau .323 avg RISP).
And if you're partial to power hitters, David Ortiz put up better numbers than Morneau in 2006. Yeah, Morneau hit for a very good batting average (but notgood enough to be in the Top 5 in the AL batting race), his OBP was average... Jeter and Ortiz beat him by a cool 40 points in OBP.
The most comparable hitter to Morneau that year was Jermaine Dye... look at the stats, it's hard to make a case for Morneau as even a more deserving 2006AL MVP candidate than Dye, who finished 5th in the AL MVP vote.
Justin Morneau
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 157 | 661 | 592 | 97 | 190 | 37 | 1 | 34 | 130 | 3 | 3 | 53 | 93 | .321 | .375 | .559 | .934 | 140 | 331 | MVP-1,SS |
[th=""]G[/th] [th=""]PA[/th] [th=""]AB[/th] [th=""]R[/th] [th=""]H[/th] [th=""]2B[/th] [th=""]3B[/th] [th=""]HR[/th] [th=""]RBI[/th] [th=""]SB[/th] [th=""]CS[/th] [th=""]BB[/th] [th=""]SO[/th] [th=""]BA[/th] [th=""]OBP[/th] [th=""]SLG[/th] [th=""]OPS[/th] [th=""]OPS+[/th] [th=""]TB[/th] [th=""]Awards[/th]
Jermaine Dye
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 146 | 611 | 539 | 103 | 170 | 27 | 3 | 44 | 120 | 7 | 3 | 59 | 118 | .315 | .385 | .622 | 1.006 | 151 | 335 | AS,MVP-5,SS |
[th=""]G[/th] [th=""]PA[/th] [th=""]AB[/th] [th=""]R[/th] [th=""]H[/th] [th=""]2B[/th] [th=""]3B[/th] [th=""]HR[/th] [th=""]RBI[/th] [th=""]SB[/th] [th=""]CS[/th] [th=""]BB[/th] [th=""]SO[/th] [th=""]BA[/th] [th=""]OBP[/th] [th=""]SLG[/th] [th=""]OPS[/th] [th=""]OPS+[/th] [th=""]TB[/th] [th=""]Awards[/th]
Originally Posted by Nowitness41Dirk
Joe Mauer missed 20 games at the beginning of the season with a back injury and still played 138 games... You do realize how unheard of that is for a catcher, right? He played literally every gad damn day for 4+ months...
And what does it matter whether or not Mauer would be in the running if the Twins didn't make the playoffs...? Fact is, they did, and he is a VERY big reason why... And even still, with the production he put up offensively as a catcher, yes, he still would have been in the running, probably still the front-runner...
No offense, but this is one of dumbest statements I've read on NT. Whenever somebody says "literally", it's generally a cue that a grossexaggeration is coming.
It is unheard of for a catcher to catch everyday, but Mauer did nothing of the sort.
Mauer started 105 games at catcher over a span of 159 days, that's an average of 4.5 starts at catcher per week. Over that span of 159 days, Mauer startedat DH for 28 games, pinch hit in 5 games, and had 21 days off (an average of 1.0 per week). He actually started considerably less often at catcher than otherelite catchers. The claim that Mauer performed an iron man feat for a catcher is really a media hyperpole. A 35-year-old starting 147 games at shortstop isprobably a more impressive feat. Only Tulowitzki, Rollins, Tejada, and Cabrera started more games at shortstop than Jeter this season.
I'm not convinced Mauer will repeat his power numbers. "Mauer Power" was really just 2 isolated HR tears. He hit 10 HR in a 17-game stretch inMay and 7 HR in a 11-game stretch in August. The rest of season? 11 HR in 110 games.
Jeter was more consistent. That's his argument for MVP. After Mauer's first "Mauer Power" outburst came to an end on May 25, Jeter out-hitMauer for the rest of the season (4½ months)... Jeter hit .355, Mauer hit .351 the rest of the way.
