Tuesday, November 18, 2008

My Contribution to the Conventional Wisdom

It won't be announced until 2PM or so, but I'm thinking about the AL MVP a bit this morning. My gut feeling is that Justin Morneau is going to walk away with it because (a) he has a lot of RBIs; and (b) the Boston guys are going to split the east coast vote. If this happens, Morneau -- who I don't think is even the most deserving MVP candidate on his own team in light of Joe Mauer's season -- will win his second undeserved MVP in three years.

Which would be weird this year because, despite all of our grousing about down-ballot weirdness, the BBWAA has gotten the winners right this year, and that isn't always the case. Here's hoping they prove me wrong with the AL this afternoon.

7 comments:

TC said...

I still think it's going to Pedroia.

Anonymous said...

I agree, if there's anything writers like more than RBIs, it's hustle/grit/heart/scrappiness (being under 5'10").

Jason @ IIATMS said...

Scrappy will win this time

bigcatasroma said...

But Morneau was clutch down the stretch

Scrappy v. Clutch -- duhn duhn DUHN!

EricInBoston said...

craig, who would your "correct" choice be?

p.s. can we stop calling pedroia scrappy?

Craig Calcaterra said...

Tough question, Eric, mostly because there are a lot of good choices. I'm kind of partial to Mauer because that offense comes with great defense at a premium position. Given that there's no single standout this year, however, I'm not going to slag on the writers for choosing, say, Pedroia or Youkilis.

Mark S said...

Pedroia has the GG and was pretty clutch (down the stretch as well) and Youkilis changed positions and the team didn't see a drop in performance at third as well as his place in the batting order (also pretty clutch). So while I will agree with bigcatasroma that Morneau was clutch I cannot say his performance surpassed either Pedroia or Youkilis in tangibles (i.e. stats) or intangibles (i.e. clutch factor).

All three are deserving so I will tip my cap to whoever wins and can appreciate and celebrate what they did to earn the award. Morneau has a slightly better chance because Pedroia and Youk will compete for the same first place votes.