Most Valuable

There are some players that are valuable to a team. Whether it's a lefty specialist coming in from the bullpen. Or perhaps it's a guy off the bench who can play a variety of positions. To be named the Most Valuable Player of the year, however, the guy needs to be something extra special. He needs to be the caliber of player that can vault his team from being a mere contender, to a potential championship bidder. And in 2010, both the American League and National League had those kinds of players.

We start first with the American League where Texas Rangers' All-Star center-fielder, and Batting Title Champion, Josh Hamilton, took home the coveted Most Valuable Player award. The first sentence alone is enough to put Hamilton into contention for the MVP prize. That doesn't tell the whole story though, because he is also a tremendous fielder. He may not have pulled in a Gold Glove yet, but he is certainly capable of snatching one each year he patrols the outskirts. He has speed enough to run down the deep drives, and is athletic and daring enough to make tremendously difficult and sometimes dangerous grabs. In fact he quite often pays the price physically for his acrobatic maneuvers out in Arlington's center-field. So he is a stellar fielder and any contending team needs a solid presence in center.

Oh, but Josh is so much more than just a good defender. The man can rake! He set a career-high in average with a league-leading .359. He also had a career-best on-base percentage and slugging percentage, and tied his best home-run total with 32 for the season. His at-bats were so astoundingly good, that from the beginning of June until the end of July, he had 90 hits in 216 plate-appearances. That's an average of .416. Most guys are considered on a 'hot streak if they hit .400 for a week. To due so for two entire months is simply ridiculous! Unfortunately Hamilton missed all but two days in September due to injury, so just imagine what he could have done with another month of playing time.

The other men high on the voting list certainly deserve recognition as well. Miguel Cabrera especially should have probably received more votes than he did. Cabrera is one of the best hitters in the game, but somehow is probably still underrated. He mashed a career-high 38 homers to go with his career-high 126 RBI, all on a team where he was the lone big-bat in the lineup, and in a pitching-friendly ballpark. He hit a fantastic .328, with an equally fantastic .420 OBP. While we're touting him, throw in 45 doubles and 111 runs for good measure, too. For his career, he has never hit less than 100 RBI in a season, and has hit below .320 only twice in 7 full years. The Lumber Menace is simply a ferocious hitter, but the fact that he did not drive his team into the playoffs with his gaudy numbers, probably kept him off of many people's top spot. But his day will come. Oh, his day shall come.

Robinson Cano finished third, despite some lofty numbers of his own. 'Don't cha know', Rob Cano set career-highs in 2010 in HR, RBI, OBP, SLG, OPS+, TB, and just about every other abbreviations know to mankind. He is a phenomenal second-baseman as well, having won the A.L. Gold Glove. He also was an All-Star and a Silver Slugger. Had he won the MVP, it would have been the second year in a row that a player was an MVP, All-Star, Gold Glover and Silver Slugger, as Joe Mauer did it in 2009. As far as I can tell, this special accolade surprisingly does not have a snazzy name to go with it. I mean four strikeouts in a game is a 'golden sombrero', so four major honors in one season should have a clever nickname too, right? Let me know if this special circumstance actually does have a name or not, or whether you can think of one.

Over in the National League, the story was quite similar. Lots of talented players vying to be the Most Valuable Player. A case could have been made for each of the top three finishers, but ultimately Cincinnati Reds 1B Joey Votto took home the trophy. He did so by leading the National League in OBP and SLG, both were career-highs. He was second in the N.L. in average with .324, third in RBI with 113, and third in homeruns with 37, and each category was a career-best for Votto. He was consistently great all year long and most importantly, helped catapult Cincinnati back into the playoffs.

Albert Pujols beat Votto in many statistical categories in 2010. Fat Albert had more runs, hits, doubles, homeruns, runs-batted-in, total bases, and walks. He had won the last two MVP awards and had won three overall in his illustrious career. In fact, since Pujols entered the league, he has never finished outside of the top ten in MVP voting, and has finished in the top three 8 times. Even Carlos Gonzalez, the multi-talented outfielder from Colorado, despite his lopsided splits of home and away stats, beat out Votto in average, RBI, total bases, steals, runs, and hits. So right now some of you might be scratching your head, asking 'How did Votto win?'

Because neither Pujols nor Gonzalez guided their team to the playoffs, that's how. The theory goes like this; If a MVP-type player were not on his team, would that team still have made it to the playoffs? In Cincinnati's case, no they could not have made it without Joey Votto. Therefore, he is worthy of winning the Most Valuable Player honors. If the Cardinals had been able to possibly squeak into the Wild Card, though, I don't know if Votto would've won. However, since the Reds took the division from the once dominant St. Louis, all bets were off.

It's very important to the voting writers that the winning player come from a playoff team. Unless a player's stats are so vastly superior to a competitor, a guy from a non-playoff team usually can't count on getting too many first-place votes. And that's why Votto walked away with the MVP award and a near-unanimous decision. Not that he didn't deserve it, mind you. It's just that when you look at the stats alone, it's a little tough to see Votto beating out both Gonzalez and Pujols. But the game isn't simply played for statistical purposes, it's played to win games and make it to the World Series. Cincinnati got closer than St. Louis and the Rockies, and there's your outcome. Some may say that's not fair, but it's the way they vote.

While we are talking about Most Valuable Players, there is one player in particular I would like to discuss, and his name is Derek Jeter. Jeter has been possibly the most consistently valuable member of the New York Yankees over the past 16 years, and one of the greatest Yankees of all-time. He leads the franchise in hits, he will eclipse 3000 hits for his career sometime next year, he is certain to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and stands a very good chance of having his number retired by the Yankees once his career is finally over. Having said all that, Jeter or his agent representatives apparently think the New York Yankees franchise now owes him more than he is worth as a baseball player. They collectively believe he is to be rewarded as an icon, and this really ticks me off.

I honestly do appreciate everything Derek Jeter has done over the years as a player. He is dynamic presence on the field, the ideal of sportsmanship, and a true team captain. But he is just one of many players in the Yankees franchise and in baseball in general that have come and gone. Despite all his great qualities, he is not an anomaly that will never come again, and when offered a very reasonable contract offer of 3 yrs/$45 million, the Jeter camp scoffed. They supposedly counter offered with a demand of somewhere around 6 years at roughly $20-$23 million a season. If these numbers are an accurate representation of what Jeter and his agents want, these people are close to being out of their minds'.

Jeter's abilities are declining. As I've said in a previous post, he won a Gold Glove this year by mistake, and he just had the worst statistical year of his entire career. But then again, in 2009 he batted .334, so maybe 2010 was just an off year for Jeter. Perhaps in 2011 Derek will see a return to greatness, but regardless of what occurs Jeter is being offered $15 million to play his position for the next three years, at which point he will be 39. Even Yankee fans must see that as a very reasonable deal.

Apparently Jeter, and many other players in baseball and other sports, keep thinking that they are owed something. I know this is the beginning of a much larger rant, so I will try to keep this focused. Jeter is being offered $15 million a year, he wants $20-something a year. At some point, professional athletes need to realize that while they deserve some monetary reward for having finely tuned talent and being forced to deal with public scrutiny, they are being paid an absurd amount of money to play a child's game. To bicker over two or three million dollars while most people are struggling to make ends meet is sickening. And while I don't mean to just pick on Jeter, this case does especially annoy me. The reason is not because Jeter has made a stupid amount of money from his contracts, and endorsements over the years. It annoys me because of this question I must ask: Does he believe that because he has been the face of the franchise for years now, he deserves more than he is worth as a player?

That is the crux of my annoyance. While players bicker over contracts, they often use the leverage of being a very talented player. 'I'll do this for you, so pay me this.' In Jeter's case, though, he's already done it. He's not going to get better. He's been paid extremely well for being extremely good, and now he's being offered a very nice sum to remain with the team. But now ego, or envy, or entitlement, or some perverse combination is being mixed into the scenario and a player is demanding reward for past deeds that he's already been rewarded for. It's the ultimate exclamation of, 'It's not enough!' and I would have expected better from such a strong character.

Perhaps Jeter is being influenced by his agents or maybe he has nothing to do with this affair apart from his name being used. Or maybe age does funny things to people who see talent slipping away. After all, Brett Favre used to have some dignity. I'm just furious that it gets to this point with some people. Aubrey Huff just won a World Series Championship with the S.F. Giants and was rewarded nicely with a 2 year/$22 million deal. He seems perfectly content. Apparently that's a rarity. Must we now have to put up with athletes who get paid millions upon millions and still proclaim that they aren't getting a fair shake? I don't know if I'll be able to put up with it. Can you?