[smitch124]

Chalk one up for the little guy!!

[maniac0201]

Morneau lost it by doing nothing the final two weeks.

[Willie Bee]

I was in Morneau's corner for this one, but can't deny the season that Pedroia had. Again, I'd like to see all of these ballots made public. No matter who you liked for your first-place vote, whoever the putz was that completely left Pedroia off his ballot should be removed from any future voting for MLB awards.

[bigboydan]

Pedroia truly deserved to win this award.

[element1286]

Mauer was my choice for this.

[element1286]

Utley - .915 OPS, top 3 defensive 2b in league
Pedroia - .869 OPS, overrated defensive 2b

Utley finished 14th in the NL voting
Pedroia finished 1st in the AL voting

I'm not saying that Utley should have won the NL MVP, because Pujols was the obvious choice. But was Pedroia really the best choice the AL MVP? Shows how little logic the writers use when voting.

[etothep]

Pedroia wouldn't have been my top choice for AL MVP, but my question is...Is there a reason other than "trying to keep baseball in the headlines 2 weeks longer" for MLB to still be handing out hardware?

[Willie Bee]

Totally agree, etothep. MLB lost it's casual fan/audience in that Game 5 debacle of the World Series. They need to hand this stuff out in October while they have an audience, not now when there are so many other in-season options for fans. Bettors espeicially could not care less about who won some award that was actually voted on 6-7 weeks ago.

[Doc JS]

Originally Posted by Willie Bee

I was in Morneau's corner for this one, but can't deny the season that Pedroia had. Again, I'd like to see all of these ballots made public. No matter who you liked for your first-place vote, whoever the putz was that completely left Pedroia off his ballot should be removed from any future voting for MLB awards.

WB,
With you 100% on this...

Reasonable people can disagree about who you rated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc...but if you so clueless that you don't have the winner on your ballot...your ballot should be taken away for good!!!

Doc

[Willie Bee]

Originally Posted by Doc JS

WB,
With you 100% on this...Reasonable people can disagree about who you rated 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc...but if you so clueless that you don't have the winner on your ballot...your ballot should be taken away for good!!!

Doc

Doc, wonder no more who the writer was in case you haven't seen this:

http://www.boston.com/sports/basebal...rant_on_l.html

In winning the MVP award, Dustin Pedroia was named on 27 of the 28 American League MVP ballots. The one writer to leave Pedroia off? That was Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, a well-respected member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, the organization that votes on awards.

Grant voted for Kevin Youkilis first, followed by the Angels' Francisco Rodriguez and the Twins' Justin Morneau.

"I think the best way for me to sum it up is, in retrospect, obviously I was wrong," Grant said by phone. "My colleagues all, and people I respect an awful lot, thought Dustin deserved to be in the top 5. I had him on my ballot in some scenarios as high as No. 1 late into September. When I looked at the numbers that to me mattered most, OPS and batting average with runners in scoring position, he just didn't stack up with Youkilis at all. He was a laggard behind the others who had great years in the American League. Is it an error of omission that he's left off my ballot entirely? You could say that."

Here is Grant's 10-person ballot:

Kevin Youkilis
Francisco Rodriguez
Justin Morneau
Josh Hamilton
Carlos Quentin
Alex Rodriguez
Cliff Lee
Joe Mauer
Grady Sizemore
Carlos Pena

Grant emphasized that there was no anti-Pedroia or anti-Red Sox bias in his vote, especially given that he gave Youkilis the No. 1 spot.

"I just thought that Sizemore and Pena were at least the equal of Dustin," Grant said. "When it got down to it, the last place on my ballot was Pedroia or Pena, Pedroia or Pena. I don't have a guy from the Rays on my ballot and they won 97 games. I was going to vote to make sure Carlos Pena got recognized. I'm not afraid to say I was wrong. I have no issue with Dustin winning."

Grant added that some of the statistical analysis that was factored into his decision included OPS and OBP, which he valued more highly than total hits or batting average. He said, "If there's an area to me that he came up short, it was in those two areas."

Pedroia was 17th in the AL in OPS (.869), with Youkilis fourth at .958. Pedroia was 10th in on-base percentage at .376; Youkilis was sixth (.390).

Now, you wanna' know what the best part of this article was? It was after the article when the reader comments started. No granted, no pun intended with regards to the sportswriter's name, most of the comments you see left are pretty belligerent and full of crap. But the third one left, man, I laughed out loud when I read it. Think we should try and get the guy over here to SBR.

Hi my name is trotdaubach I drink too much and I'm really mad.
-- Posted by trotdaubach November 18, 08 04:05 PM

[smitch124]

Originally Posted by Willie Bee

Hi my name is trotdaubach I drink too much and I'm really mad.
-- Posted by trotdaubach November 18, 08 04:05 PM

[element1286]

At least he was using OPS, but in the wrong context.

Morneau had a better OPS than Pedroia, .873 to .872, but the fact that Pedroia plays second base makes his OPS more valuable than Morneau's at 1b. Same goes for Pena.

Rodriguez at number 2 is laughable.

[Victor]

that's surely a matter to proud for the BSOX... the boy plays brilliantly being a second basemen... hope he'll remain consistent in rest of the matches as well. Congrats buddy...