The Awards Season : Part 1

The seasons running down so its probably about time I go off about the inequities of who will win and who should win the big awards this year...and maybe I should also think about more original titles to my entries.

AL MVP

The favourite in this category seems to be Derek Jeter but then the favourite always seems to come from Boston or New York. Now I’m not saying that Jeter hasn’t had a great season, but he’s basically just been Derek Jeter this year.

Most of the problems for the Yanks this year has been with an endless stream of injuries to their big RBI men and the guy who has picked up the slack in that department has been Jason Giambi and he’s even had to pick up the slack from a slightly sub-par A-Rod.

For me its hard to pick an MVP out of a line-up that was always expected to score a tonne of runs before the season and if the Yankees got any kind of half-decent pitching they were always going to be a playoff team. For me the MVP should come from someone who does something to lift a line-up from being an alright one to a championship one. Few expected the Twins to score enough runs to make the playoffs but the guy who has anchored the heart of that team and made them genuine contenders is Justin Morneau.

You can say all you want about Joe Mauer and his potential batting crown as a catcher but he wouldn’t have been able to do that without the big guy behind him and Mauer still hasn’t established himself as a serious power bat.

Oh, and by the way I don’t want to hear anything from anyone about Ortiz and how well he has hit for the free falling Red Sox. No one can be seriously considered an MVP when his team collapses that badly, that quickly.

NL MVP

The favourite for the NL gong is probably Ryan Howard and that’s probably the way it should be. About a month ago I toyed with the idea of Carlos Beltran getting the nod, and he has had a great year, but in the most mediocre of Wild Card races, Howard has just gone postal on NL pitchers and dragged the Phils to the very cusp of post-season play.

Of course we should say a word about Phat Albert who was on pace to hit 80 homeruns and drive in 200 runs and also, incidentally, find a cure for cancer but sadly injury curtailed that effort and really Howard has out Albert-ed Albert.