Nitpicking the AL MVP votings

First off, congrats to Dustin Pedroia for winning the 2008 MLB AL MVP. I have no qualms with his winning the award, though I thought Kevin Youkilis was probably more valuable to the Red Sox, but whatever.

Despite it not being a controversial decision, there still are matters of concern found within the voting results.

First off, Pedroia received 16 of 28 first place votes. However, he only had a total of 27 votes. One voter left him off his ballot of 10 completely. 16 first place, 6 second place, 4 third place, and 1 forth place. 27 writers had him in their top 4; the 28th writer left him out of his top ten. Stupidity or balls, you decide. Anyways, kudos to you, Evan Grant, for being a maverick.

Perhaps the next biggest issue I have is with Fransisco Rodriguez. Sure, he had a great season for a closer, and yes, he broke the all-time saves record for a season. But in order for a closer to be 6th in MVP voting, you had damn well not have blown 7 save opportunities. Not only that, but one voter put him #1. One of 28 selected voters felt K-Rod was more valuable to the Angels than any other AL player was to his team. Take that, more deserving players!

I'm a Twins fan. A BIG Twins fan (not fat, just a high level of enthusiasm for the team). Therefore, I love following former Twins in their careers post Twins, though I wouldn't have minded if David Ortiz had managed to put up the numbers with the Twins that he has with the Red Sox. Anyways...

I love most former Twins, but c'mon, Jason Bartlett does not deserve a 5th place vote in the AL MVP race. Sure he's decent and all, but really? One of the voters felt there were only four more valuable players in the AL than Jason Bartlett? I'm not even sure he is the 5th best on that team, let alone the entire league. And yes, I am well aware that the Rays voted him their team MVP. Why they did this, I am unsure. Maybe he was feeling down after leaving Minnesota, and the team wanted to boost his spirits.

Another big thing jumped out at me this year. It wasn't who got a vote that was deserving, it was the shock of seeing that not a single voter put Derek Jeter anywhere in their top ten. This is significant as it is only the second time since his rookie season that he received 0 votes for MVP. I'm not saying that Jeter deserved any votes, because he didn't, it's just different to not see him getting any votes. Kind of relieving really.

Oddly enough, each division had one team that had no players receiving any votes. The A's, Royals, and Blue Jays collectively received 0 votes. Mike Mussina received an 8th place vote and yet Roy Halladay zero? Actually, now that I'm checking out their respective stats, that vote may piss me off more than any of them. Who voted for Mussina? Can they explain why they felt Mussina was more worthy of a vote than Roy Halladay?

Halladay is the steak to most pitchers' hamburger. (Food metaphor tribute to FJM...RIP)

Oh yeah, and the NL had an MVP too. Well deserved Pujols! Looking over the voting results there, that shit is fucked.

So it's the offseason...where have I been?

Ahhh my baseball blog pet project, how quickly I can come to neglect you, like a child's lost interest in his pet hermit crab. Is it time to break out the defibrillator in an attempt to resurrect you from death's near grasp? I'll give it a shot, which means this is gonna be another catching up to speed on what the hell's been going on with baseball since I last posted.

What's that? Baseball is over? Surely you jest! For any true baseball fan knows, baseball is NEVER over. It is a 12-month season, we just happen to be in the segment referred to as the "off" season, which contains as much, if not more, excitement than certain parts of the "regular" season. But anyways...

Congrats to the Phillies on winning their second World Series title ever. Two titles, 126 seasons. Six pennants, 126 seasons. As has been well reported, now that Philadelphia has ended its 25-year championship drought, the distinction of a four sport city going the longest without a title now belongs to...Minneapolis. Yep, that's me! Our last title came from the Twins in 1991. Asides from the Twins in 1991 and 1987, you gotta go back to the days of the George Mikan and the Lakers to find a title that Minnesota has got to celebrate.

Sure, we've now gone the longest, but we've only got D.C. beat by a few months, as the Redskins won the Super Bowl shortly after the Twins won the World Series. Could be worse though, Cleveland has got a pretty shitty championship history. Indians have gone 60 years without a title and only have two in their 106 seasons. Browns have no Super Bowls, though they were pretty good before the Super Bowl era. The Cavs may have no titles, but having Lebron is pretty awesome. Although the Timberwolves did have Garnett all those years, but no Finals appearances to show for it. Thank you, Kevin McHale.

Ah who am I kidding, I don't genuinely give a shit about the NBA.

There was an interesting (at least to me) article linked off of Deadspin from the New York Daily News. Apparently it's been 50 years since the Yankees won a World Series while a republican was the sitting president. Any other team this may not seem that big a deal, but when you think about how many damn titles those fuckers have (I try not to), it is actually pretty bizarre that they've gone 50 years without one while a republican was president. Of course, now that I'm looking over the Yankees' history on Baseball Reference, that doesn't seem nearly impressive as it first sounded. Over the past 50 years they've had 8 titles, the last four of which were during the Clinton administration (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000).

Which reminds me, Barack Obama won the presidency. I'm sure you've heard and read enough about that so I'm gonna skip that for now. There's talk of him throwing out the first pitch for the White Sox in the 2009 season. Let's hope that doesn't interfere with his duty to throw out the first pitch at the Nationals home opener, as it is his presidential responsibility...i think.

Anyways, it's the start of the offseason. That means months and months of false speculation about who is going where and for how much! Already I've heard numerous theories about what the Twins should/could/are going to do to strengthen their team. Obviously solid starters at 3B and SS are desired, and names abound! Adrian Beltre! Casey Blake! Hank Blalock! Garrett Atkins! Orlando Cabrera! Etc. Etc! With some money to spend and a year away from a new ballpark, I do have high hopes that the Twins will actually make a solid offseason signing for a change. I've had enough of signings like Livan Hernandez, Craig Monroe, Tony Batista, Rondell White, Ramon Ortiz, Ruben Sierra, Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, Jeff Cirillo, Sidney Ponson and Phil Nevin.

My preference would be to swindle the Brewers into trading J.J. Hardy to the Twins, but I have no idea why they would do that.

Ok bye for now.

The Perkilator dominates!

So I went to last night's Twins/Yankees game at the Metrodome, and boy am I thankful I did. That was a sweet game, for I got to see Glen Perkins pitch the finest game of his young career, and just a day after welcoming his second daughter into the world.

Perkins pitched 8 shutout innings, giving up only 4 hits and 3 walks with 4 strikeouts. His only real blemish came on a throwing error to first baseman Justin "You Know" Morneau checking Robinson Cano back to first base. The error allowed Cano to reach third. Richie Sexson followed with a walk, but Pudge followed with a popup and Melky Cabrera grounded into an inning-ending double play, rendering Perkins' error meaningless. Afterwards, Perkins did not allow another Yankees baserunner past first base for the remainder of the game.

Glen Perkins, after heating up the Yankees last night, I dub thee "The Perkilator."

Perkilator picture is all me, baby! Bow to my skills!

The Yankees hate terrorism; love money

A lot of stupid things have been justified over the past seven years in the name of fighting terrorism. Some may make sense, some may not. Then some are just downright ridiculous.

In the name of fighting terrorism, Yankee stadium has a ban on bringing bottles of sunscreen to their games.

"Security guards collected garbage bags full of sunblock at the entrances to Yankee Stadium over the sweltering weekend, when temps hit 96 degrees and the UV index reached a skin-scorching 9 out of 10 - a move team officials said was to protect the Stadium from terrorism."

Not to worry though, the stadium does have sunscreen you can purchase there. It's only $5 for 1 ounce of SPF-15.

Oh yeah, Major League Baseball has been raising awareness of skin cancer for ten years now through their program called "Play Sun Smart."

If you can't bring sunscreen into Yankee Stadium, then the terrorists have truly won.

Richie Sexson, I mean, why not?

The Yankees are giving a shot to Richie Sexson to be their first baseman. The man recently cut by the Seattle Mariners. Let that sink in for a minute.

Remember, this dude was actually kind of cool for a little while there. Not only was he a power hitter, but he was fucking tall, so he looked pretty awesome at the plate crushing the puny ball out of the park. But that was then, this is now.

He was cut. By the Seattle Mariners. [takes deep breath while thinking about that] A man that was batting .218/.315/.381. A 6'8" man that twice hit 45 homers in a season, and hit 34 as recently as 2006. This is how far he's tumbled. Dude made $15.5 million in 2007!

He was cut by the Seattle Mariners. The team with the worst record in the AL cut him from their roster. But now, he's quite possibly the answer to the Yankees problems, or so says BBTN. They actually suggested something along those lines!

Think about the 2008 Yankees for a second. Think about the reasons that they're underperforming (for Yankees standards) and third in their division despite having far and away the largest payroll in MLB. Now, have you dwelt on the Yankees problems this year...

Does Richie Sexson even remotely fit into what you think could help them 'turn it around?' On an offense with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui (some of whom are injured, yes), you think that Richie Sexson is the answer? If so, you should probably re-evaluate what you think you know about baseball.

I hate the Yankees. For that reason, I am personally excited that they have the fortitude to sign Richie Sexson. Or as he'll soon be known as in New York, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

EDIT: First off, yes, this was probably more a salary dump than anything for the Mariners. Secondly, the Yankees did sign him to help them with hitting left handed pitching. To Sexson's credit, his splits look like this:

         G  PA  AB  H  2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE 
VS. RHP  72 221 191 34 6  0  6  18  28  0  63  0  0  2   3   
VS. LHP  34  71  61 21 2  0  5  12   9  0  13  0  0  1   2 

          GDP  SB CS BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  BAbip sOPS+ tOPS+
VS. RHP    7   1  0 .178  .281  .304  .584  .226    65    69
VS. LHP    1   0  0 .344  .423  .623 1.045  .364   169   198

So we'll see I guess...