okay, it\’s friday, and i know something is off-kilter because i just found myself rather enlightened by an interview with jason whitlock. kill me now.
(**editor\’s note: alex just sent me the same link, saying [basically] the same thing. we ate too much spam as children. carry on.)
back in minneapolis after a two-day tour in new york, new york, the city so nice they named it twice. (the other name is manhattan.) it was a quasi-boondoggle, highlighted by a walking tour of brokerage and commercial banks in downtown manhattan on wednesday afternoon. it was exactly five years ago that i first visited manhattan, and– needless to say– the mood was quite different this time. oh, another highlight: riding in the limo past 30 rockafeller and seeing jason lee standing outside. EARL HICKEY!
anyways… topic. oh, right: let\’s do something easy.
the twins were briefly tied for first place in my absence before johan choked last night against the bosox. which, yes, is uncharacteristic and unfortunate. however, a) we didn\’t lose any ground to detroit, and 2) we hopefully quelled all of the needless \”Johan for MVP\” talk. this topic has been up for debate quite a bit recently, but not here yet. so here\’s why johan should not be this year\’s american league MVP:
1) johan has had an amazing year, no doubt. and the twins have performed extremely well whenever he\’s started the game, going at an .813 clip since the beginning of the season. but i\’ll never be convinced that anyone who performs every fifth day is going to be as valuable to his team as someone who goes out every day, or at least most days. consider this scenario: big papi starts the season with an absolute bang, and is hitting 16 homeruns with 24 rbi but gets injured in early may and misses the rest of the season, after starting only 34 games. would you consider him for MVP, even though he didn\’t play in 80% of his teams games?
2) the cy young is for pitchers, the MVP is not.  why mlb refuses to codify the latter is beyond me. the cy was created specifically in 1956 to stop the trend of MVP awards going to pitchers (gory stats here, courtesy of wiki.) you got to keep \’em separated.
3) lastly, johan isn\’t the MVP of his own team. that honor belongs to morneausy, who\’s rapid tear in june not so coincidentally coincided with the team\’s ascent. morneau is the best hitter in the AL right now, equal to ryan howard of the phils, and because of his power threat opposing pitchers treat our batting order differently. the pirhanas can thank him for that.
santana should certainly win the cy young award this year? but the MVP? nope.
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