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Derek Jeter is going to be the American League's Most Valuable Player for 2006. That's fine by me. The Yankee shortstop is as good a choice as any and better than almost all the rest.

The baseball community, especially including the writers who include the actual voters for the award, are almost unanimous in their opinion Jeter deserves the award. This morning's Globe had a typically forthright column by Bob Ryan saying just that in this morning's Globe.

(One thing about Bob. He's not what politicans call a "leaning voter." It'd be great to hear Ryan get polled by a telephone sampler on any topic under the sun.)

About the only person inside baseball who hasn't gotten with the Jeter program is Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz. The league leader in home runs and RBIs is caught in a time warp. Ortiz doubtless can't help remembering that less than one month ago, the baseball community was just as near-unanimous in its opinion HE'D be elected MVP in a landslide.

What's changed in that time? As far as Jeter's and Ortiz's individual performances go, nothing. Each was having an unbelievable season back in mid-August. Each still is. Both their teams could not afford to lose their services. When Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, 250 RBI's worth of production, were lost with injuries, Jeter responded with the best season of his Hall of Fame career. As far as can be determined, Ortiz has hit more late-inning game-tying or winning homers as any slugger ever. He's got an excellent chance to set the all-time Red Sox record for home runs in a season, and he plays for a team that's put some pretty fair hitters in its lineups over the years.

In short, Jeter and Ortiz BOTH have impeccable MVP credentials. In my favorite offensive stat, runs produced (runs+RBI-HR), the score stands Jeter 183-Ortiz 182, and it's been that close all year. Why were Ortiz's deemed so much stronger four weeks ago? Why has Jeter put him in the shade?

The answer is simple, maddening, and most of all, has nothing to do with either man. In August, the Yanks and Sox were locked in a tight race for the AL East pennant. Since then, New York has kept on winning, while Boston has imploded its way out of the playoff hunt. Ortiz is being punished for the sins of his teammates. If only he could've pitched some middle relief last month, Papi would still be consensus MVP.

The Sox' season died when they swept by the Yankees in a five game series Aug. 18-21. Ortiz went wild that weekend, culminating his sports fiction-for-boys performance by climbing out of a hospital bed after treatment for heart palpitations and slamming two homers in a game. No individual could've done more to be of value to his team.

Ortiz's heroics were useless. Boston pitchers surrendered 49 runs in the five games, 47 of them in the first four. No hitter real or imagined, not Ty Cobb on human growth hormone nor Babe Ruth with an aluminum bat, can save his team when it gives up 10 runs a game.

Riddled with the injuries inherent to old position players and pitchers of all ages, the Sox have continued to stagger. Ortiz, after a week off to treat his condition, has continued to hit. For all the good that did him in the MVP race, he might as well have shut his season down on August 22.

As noted, Jeter will be a deserving MVP. But we shouldn't ignore the bogus reasoning cited for that decision. Ortiz's clutch heroics staved off an inevitable Sox collapse for months. There is NO reason why failure to prevent the destined makes a player less valuable than a player whose TEAMMATES rallied to support HIS valuable performance.

Next to love, value is the most subjective concept in human life. Gold, a soft, shiny, and essentially useless metal, has been the definition of value throughout history. In sports, the Seahawks thought Deion Branch was at least twice as valuable as did the Patriots, and we won't know which assessment was correct for a long time.

Recognizing this, the custodians of the MVP award, the Baseball Writers' Association, has issued the loosest of guidelines to the voters (two beat writers, different each year, from each league city). "Valuable" means whatever a voter thinks it does. As a result, the standards for the winner vary wildly from season to season. There's really no way to change that phenomenon. Expecting sportswriters to define a word that's baffled economists and philosophers for centuries is a bit much.

I have two exceptions to that permissive attitude. The idea that an individual's value to a team is displayed by that team's position in the standings is utterly bogus. It's also not-kosher to cite reasons for a vote that contradict one's past standards, or that are meant to hide the voter's true motive.

Guys from last place teams have been voted MVP. So it's not an iron-clad rule the winner must come from a team that makes the post-season. With baseball's expansion to six different divisions and the wild-card format, there are both more cellar-dwellers and pennant winners than ever, so there should more exceptions to that tired formula.

Consider the National League MVP race, which has boiled down to three leading candidates, Ryan Howard of the Phillies, Carlos Beltran of the Mets, and Albert Pujols of the Cardinals. All three have enjoyed top-shelf super-MVP quality seasons. In a head-scratcher of cosmic proportions, Beltran is considered the long-shot of the trio because his team has won TOO MUCH. Ergo, he can't be so valuable as the best guy on a contender with a lesser record. Huh?

Without Pujols, the Cards would be sunk. Without Howard, the Phillies might've vanished altogether. Many commentators, who will be echoed by some voters, say the decision will come down to this: the Cards are bound to finish first in the NL Central. If the Phillies can't win the wild card, then Pujols, not Howard, should be MVP.

The NL wild card race is a scramble among four or five essentially .500 teams. That's the living definition of a random variable. If the Phillies and Cards were to trade places, Philadelphia would lead the Central, too. By the logic of Pujols' boosters, he's more valuable because his team plays in a lousier division. That's a double "Huh?".

Moving back to the American League, the real reason Jeter will win the MVP in a landslide isn't his team's success. That's an excuse. The truth is the electorate has decided, "Hey, it's his turn."
They do that. Alex Rodriguez had a better year for the last place Rangers in 2002 than in 2003, but he won his first MVP in the latter year because the voters felt they couldn't keep screwing him because of Texas' pitching forever.

Jeter is a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer for a perennial winner who's enjoying the finest season of his career. He OUGHT to be an MVP sooner or later, and if not now, when? That very same sentiment, by the way, made Ortiz the MVP favorite back in the summer. The world knew the vote last season between runner-up Big Papi and winner Rodriguez could've gone either way with equal justice.

"It's his turn" is not an idea one can express in statistics, nor is it a particularly judicious motive for ANY decision. It's a lot easier to point to the standings as why Jeter was more valuable than Ortiz. It's a lot more specious, too.

Oh, well. The truth is, some poor bastard gers screwed in the MVP voting almost every year, jbecause there are usually more than one obvious candidate who carried his club on his back with a career year. In 1999, known in these parts as the year George King screwed Pedro, Manny Ramirez had 165 RBI for the AL Central champion Indians. He finished FOURTH in the MVP vote.

Discussing the MVP award, one of the five greatest players on history once told me to look up the best year he ever had. So I did.

In 1963, Hank Aaron played 161 games, had a .319 batting average and 201 hits. He led the National League in homers (44), RBI (130), runs scored (121), and slugging percentage (.586). With an OBP of .393, Aaron's OPS was a manly .979. Oh, yeah, he also stole 31 bases.

Aaron was not, however, voted the MVP. That award went to some bum southpaw named Koufax.

David Ortiz is a friendly, so I hope he won't mind some friendly advice. Never sweat an award voted on by outsiders. Keep on slugging, and sooner or later, it'll be your turn as MVP.

posted by Michael Gee @ 7:47 AM