Maggs will settle for a stellar 2nd in AL MVP race

DETROIT -- In most any other year, Magglio Ordonez's season at the plate would've earned him an American League Most Valuable Player award. In 2007, he'll have to settle for a batting title and the best season by a player not nicknamed A-Rod.

The AL MVP results released on Monday didn't yield any surprises, though it probably would've been a shock to the baseball world had Alex Rodriguez not won the award. Ordonez, whose .363 batting average led the Majors and whose 139 RBIs trailed only Rodriguez, ended up second to him in the voting.

At least Ordonez received a first-place vote, a recognition of what his season meant to the Tigers. While Detroit couldn't defend its American League pennant, Ordonez played a major role in keeping them close into September.

Aside from NL batting champion Matt Holliday, a strong contender for NL MVP honors, arguably no hitter in baseball combined pure hitting and run production this year like Ordonez. The 33-year-old came into the season as a hero in Detroit after his walk-off home run in Game 4 of the ALCS sent the Tigers to the World Series in 2006. He followed up his magical moment with an entire magical season, one that was remarkably consistent for him. "You always have your goals, but sometimes you don't get your goals," Ordonez said at the end of the season. "This time, I surpassed my goals. It's amazing."

Ordonez's average was the second-highest by a right-hander in 68 seasons since Joe DiMaggio hit .381 in 1939. Only Nomar Garciaparra, who batted .372 in 2000, hit for a higher average among righties during that span.

Among more recent standards, only Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki had more base hits among Major League hitters this season than Ordonez's 216. While Ichiro was hitting infield singles, however, doubles into the gap were Ordonez's specialty. His 54 doubles led all of baseball, topping Red Sox masher David Ortiz and propelling him right behind Rodriguez with 354 total bases.

It was a major step forward for Ordonez, but he has pure hitting in his history. Ordonez had six .300 seasons in a seven-year span from 1999 to 2005, but never hit higher than .320. More impressive, however, was how he translated that into runs.

Ordonez batted .429 with runners in scoring position and .391 with runners on base, both best in the American League. He was a .307 hitter with 36 RBIs with runners in scoring position and two outs.

He couldn't match Rodriguez for power and production, not at this point in his career. But no one could. Still, he did pretty well in his own right. He even had his single-game moments, including two home runs in the same inning. The only other Tiger ever to do that was Al Kaline.

In terms of Tigers standards, his other numbers were the best in years. Not only did he become Detroit's first batting champion since Norm Cash in 1961, he had the highest batting average by a Tiger since Charlie Gehringer hit .371 in 1937. His hits and doubles totals were the most by a Tiger since George Kell in 1950.

As for Ordonez's runner-up finish in MVP voting, it's slightly less rare for the Tigers. Cecil Fielder finished a close second in both 1990 and '91 to Rickey Henderson and Cal Ripken, respectively. Alan Trammell, the last Tiger with 200 hits in a season until Ordonez did it, finished a close and controversial second to Toronto's George Bell in 1987. Former Tigers closer Willie Hernandez remains the last Detroit player to win the MVP, earning it in 1984.

2007 AL MVP Award Voting

Player, Club Alex Rodriguez, NYY Maglio Ordonez, DET
1st........................26...................... 2
2nd..........................2.................... 22
3rd.................................................. 4
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
Points......................328....................258

Granderson received 51 points

SEE LINK BELOW FOR COMPLETE VOTING
http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071119&content_id=2303563&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det

Way to go Curtis! And Magglio, too obviously! Where is the full voting results?

GO !!!

catbox_9 wrote:

Way to go Curtis! And Magglio, too obviously! Where is the full voting results?

I'll just put the totals:

2007 AL MVP Award Voting
Alex Rodriguez, NYY 382
Magglio Ordonez, DET 258
Vladimir Guerrero, LAA 203
David Ortiz, BOS 177
Mike Lowell, BOS 126
Jorge Posada, NYY 112
Victor Martinez, CLE 103
Ichiro Suzuki, SEA 89
Carlos Pena, TB 64
Curtis Granderson, DET 51
Derek Jeter, NYY 17
Grady Sizemore, CLE 15
J.J. Putz, SEA 12
C.C. Sabathia, CLE 11
Torii Hunter, MIN 5
Orlando Cabrera, LAA 5
Bobby Abreu, NYY 4
John Lackey, LAA 4
Placido Polanco, DET 4
Justin Morneau, MIN 3
Chone Figgins, LAA 3
Josh Beckett, BOS 2
Fausto Carmona, CLE 1
Frank Thomas, TOR 1

Ichiro ahead of Granderson?!?!?!!?

Not a single vote for Verlander? That sucks, too!

The maximum total votes is 392.

Magglio picks up 0.658 MVP shares. Prior to this year he had 0.27 shares. After this year he has 0.93 MVP shares! That's almost an MVP! Prior to today he was ranked 608th all-time in MVP shares. After today he's going to be a lot higher!

Granderson picks up 0.13 shares (0.13 for his career)

Polanco gets 0.01 shares and now has 0.01.

I'll be able to tell you where these 3 guys rank all-time tomorrow when baseball-reference.com updates it.

Granderson was WAY ahead of Sizemore! At least the voters got that right!

I love the detroit hater reaction found at

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/beat/Detroit/

which came from
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3119020

Monday, November 19, 2007

Detroit suck-ups deny Rod unanimous MVP

Rodriguez had 28 first-place votes and 382 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Ordonez had two firsts and 258 points, and was followed by the Angels’ Vladimir Guerrero (203) and Boston’s David Ortiz (177).

The only two first-place votes that didn’t go to Rodriguez were from Tom Gage of The Detroit News and Jim Hawkins of The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich.

And the whole world cried....................

That damn AROD... I wish he would drop off the face of the earth!

Glad to see Victor in the top 10. I love him too!

gogetemtigers wrote:

I love the detroit hater reaction found at

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/beat/Detroit/

which came from
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3119020

Monday, November 19, 2007

Detroit suck-ups deny Rod unanimous MVP

<blockquote>Rodriguez had 28 first-place votes and 382 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Ordonez had two firsts and 258 points, and was followed by the Angels’ Vladimir Guerrero (203) and Boston’s David Ortiz (177).

The only two first-place votes that didn’t go to Rodriguez were from Tom Gage of The Detroit News and Jim Hawkins of The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich.</blockquote>

Ya know, you'd think the player with the second-highest BA for a righthander in 68 years would get more respect. I don't think they're suck ups.... just brilliant sports minds. Ha!

What the hell is wrong with people? He won the award, why should it matter if it's unanimous or not?

Well, they will have to live with it, it was not unanimous! Maggs will just have to put that New Yorker in his place and beat him next year!


Maggs! A. Rod

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:curtis: !!!!!!!!!!!!!
:placido: !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The line on Tigers outfielder Magglio Ordonez was that, in any other year, he would have been the winner of the American League MVP Award.

But two Detroit-area writers asked the question: Why not this year?

Sure, Alex Rodriguez had the hype -- and now he has the MVP Award to go with it. But in the minds of Jim Hawkins of the Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mich., and Tom Gage of the Detroit News, Ordonez had the numbers worthy of recognition.

Hawkins and Gage were the only two members of the Baseball Writers Association of America to cast a vote for someone other than A-Rod in the MVP race, and they both went with Ordonez.

"I saw Magglio play every day," Hawkins said. "What I saw was a player having an MVP year. I have no quarrel with anyone who voted for A-Rod. He also had an MVP year. But with the injuries the Tigers had and the effort and performance I saw from Magglio, there's no question he had an MVP year."

Gage uttered much the same belief.

"I went with what I saw," he said. "So many times, you have to vote off the stat sheet. I fully expected A Rod to win. He had a great year. But I saw an MVP year. There were stats to back up the impression that I came away with from the regular season."

The stat that most appealed to Gage and Hawkins was average with runners in scoring position. Ordonez had the best such mark in the AL with a .429 average that was nearly 100 points higher than Rodriguez's .333 average. Ordonez also won the AL batting title with a .363 mark that bested Rodriguez's .314.

The rest of the voters, meanwhile, were especially enamored with Rodriguez's superior numbers in the home run (54 to Ordonez's 20) and RBI (156 to Ordonez's 139) departments.

"Home runs are a glamour stat," said Gage, who has been a BBWAA member for 30 years. "Home runs and RBIs grab everybody's attention, but why isn't it equally impressive that Magglio had a .363 batting average -- the highest by a Tiger since Norm Cash in 1961?"

Hawkins first became a member of the BBWAA in 1970. And since that time, he's always put particular stock into the true essence of the award -- a players' value to his club.

"You have to ask yourself where the Yankees would have finished without A-Rod and where the Tigers would have finished without Ordonez," Hawkins said. "A-Rod had a better supporting cast than Magglio did. I know for a fact the Tigers would not have been anywhere close and certainly not in Wild Card contention without Magglio."

The Tigers, who were the defending AL champs in 2007, finished eight games behind the Indians in the AL Central and six games behind the Yanks in the Wild Card chase.

Throughout a tumultuous year, Ordonez was a model of consistency for Detroit.

"Frankly, I'm surprised the election was not closer," Hawkins said. "I'm not surprised A-Rod won, but I was a little shocked to see that four writers placed Magglio third."

Hawkins wasn't as surprised to receive backlash for his ballot.

"I just counted it up," he said less than three hours after the voting had been announced, "and as of a few minutes ago, I had gotten 30-some e-mails. All but two or three of them said, 'You're an idiot.'"

Gage also knew people would call him out for being a "homer." But to that, he offers his heartfelt dissent.

"If there's any integrity in the vote, you can't vote for selfish reasons," he said. "That just doesn't enter into it. I expected a lot of calls. But [Ordonez had] the finest season I've ever seen a Tiger have since I've covered baseball. I don't take these things lightly. Knew what the response and accusations would be, but I voted for the player who I feel deserved it."

Yankee Fans are mostly Dumbass......

Your guy won, stop bitching you big crybabies!!

Everybody EXPECTED ARod to put up those gaudy numbers, it is what the Highest Paid player in the game $HOULD do.

Magglio had the better all-around season and was more of a catalyst for his team's success.

Biased or not, that's what I say....

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Analysis

Maggs over A-Rod for MVP? Yes, and here's why

Tom Gage / The Detroit News

Editor's note: Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees was named the American League MVP Monday, getting 26 of 28 first-place votes. News reporter Tom Gage explains why he voted for Magglio Ordonez.

I knew it would be a losing vote, but that's OK.

As long as you follow your conscience, as long as you vote the way you think you should, and what your heart and eyes tell you -- even if it's in a lopsided minority -- then that's the way you need to vote.

Be true to what you believe.


This ballot happened to be for American League Most Valuable Player, a privilege I've had as a baseball writer more than a dozen times over the years.


Often it's easy. This time it wasn't. I voted for Magglio Ordonez of the Tigers instead of Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees. Only one other voter of 28 agreed.

That voter was Jim Hawkins of the Oakland Press, who clearly saw the same season I did, and the same reasons to vote for Ordonez as I did. His vote was as much validation for mine as my vote was for his, because it meant Ordonez made the identical impression on us both.

It was such a strong impression that I couldn't dismiss it by simply saying, "Gee, I better vote for A-Rod because everyone else is."

I don't blame anybody else for not voting for Magglio, though. They didn't see him play every day. They went by the stat sheet -- as I've had to do with most MVP votes.

But I believed in the vote for Ordonez when I cast it. And now, several wondering-why phone calls later, I still believe in it.

I did it because I thought Ordonez was more valuable to his team than A-Rod was to his, but also for specific statistical reasons: such as the wide disparity between Ordonez's batting average (.363-.314) and more so because Ordonez hit .429 with runners in scoring position compared to .333 by A-Rod.

To me, that was the separating proof of value right there. The Tigers were able to depend on Ordonez with runners in scoring position far more than the Yankees were able to depend on A-Rod. Yes, Rodriguez had all those home runs, the glamour stat. Plus he had 17 more RBIs than Ordonez, but only 17.

I think a 49-point difference in batting average and a 96-point difference in their averages with runners in scoring position, the clutch stat to home runs' glamour, more than offset the obvious reasons to vote for A-Rod.

Rest assured, I did not do it for 'homer' reasons. If that were the case, I would have voted for Tigers every chance I had through the years. That said, I fully expected Rodriguez to win. He had a great year, but not one worthy of getting every first-place vote.

With the result being announced at 2 p.m. on Monday, I knew my cell phone would start ringing by 2:15 from reporters and talk shows wanting to know my reasoning.

If there was disagreement, I believe those who called eventually thought there was more of a case for Ordonez than they initially believed. Not changing their mind, they at least felt my point of view was credible.

What bothered me most, however, was what Keith Law, one of ESPN's baseball insiders said. He called the vote for Ordonez 'ridiculous' -- which I didn't mind. He's entitled to that opinion. But he also said that when he heard Ordonez had received two first-place votes, he immediately knew the two were cast by Detroit writers because of the pressure on beat writers to basically vote along party lines.

In other words, we caved.

We didn't vote for A-Rod because Magglio would have been angry if we had.

That didn't stop me from voting for Cal Ripken instead of Cecil Fielder in 1991, Keith.

And if you knew anything at all about Jim Hawkins, you'd know that high on the list of his personality traits is that he has long since reached the stage in his life that he's not afraid of any player, nor beholden to any phony pressure.

He's as irreverent as they come, takes no sass from anyone -- except the usual daily feedback that comes with the beat -- and would have been the last person to cast a vote so that a player would keep talking to him.

Besides, Ordonez doesn't talk to us at length anyway. And that's no slam on him. He's polite, easy-going, friendly, but never has wanted to be a go-to guy for quotes -- and never has been.

If you want to find writers worried about the repercussions of their votes, sir, the ranks of the Baseball Writers Association is not the place to look. Therefore, take your superficial reasoning and upload it.

Besides, logic dictates that it requires more courage to row against a predictably overwhelming outcome than with it. Again, I knew there'd be criticism. I knew there'd be a lot of it.

Just don't come at me with feeble supposition. That diminishes the fact that Ordonez got the number of first place votes he deserved. So did A-Rod.

I LOVE that the Detroit writers both voted for Magglio!!

Testicular, indeed!!

Wow, what a great article. I'm going to send it to my father-in-law the Yankee fan. Should spark some good debate a T-giving.

What's neat is some people think an A's writer did it since the other Detroit writer is from the Oakland something or other.

Most people think Oakland means CA.

Not ppl from Detroit!!

Oakland University....GOOD school!!

Go Golden Grizzlies!

LOL!!

If it had been up to the 1999 American League Most Valuable Player, Alex Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez would share this year's award.

"What Magglio did for us, what Alex did for the Yankees, it was amazing," Tigers catcher Pudge Rodriguez said in a telephone interview Monday. "They both deserved it."

In the end, Alex Rodriguez won by a convincing margin in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. He earned 26 of 28 first-place votes to claim his third AL MVP award and second in four seasons with the New York Yankees.

Ordonez, who finished second, received two first-place votes after a season in which he became the first Tiger since 1961 to win the AL batting title.

Ordonez, 33, had a .363 batting average and 28 home runs, along with career highs in RBIs (139) and doubles (54).

After Ordonez clinched the batting title on the season's final day, Detroit manager Jim Leyland autographed a ball for him. The inscription read, in part: "The best single-season performance I've ever seen."

"In normal years," Tigers president and general manager Dave Dombrowski said Monday, "those are MVP numbers."

Of course, this was hardly a normal year for Alex Rodriguez. He led the league with 54 home runs, 156 RBIs and a career-high .645 slugging percentage.

The MVP race remained close for much of the season before Rodriguez pushed the Yankees past Ordonez's Tigers in the AL wild-card standings.

Writers from the Detroit News and the Oakland Press cast the two first-place votes for Ordonez. When asked if a unanimous award would have made a difference, Alex Rodriguez said, "Absolutely not."

"Magglio is a friend and had an unbelievable season," he said.

Alex Rodriguez did not wish to discuss details of his reported 10-year, $275-million agreement with the Yankees during a Monday teleconference but spoke optimistically about continuing his career in New York.

Ordonez, who will receive a $200,000 bonus for his finish in the voting, has a contract with the Tigers that runs through at least 2009 and potentially 2011.

"That's why they signed him to that long-term contract," Pudge Rodriguez said, as he talked about Ordonez's season. "They know he can hit. That's the Magglio we're going to see for years.

"I'm just very happy for him. He's our MVP, after what he did. He was everything for us."

NOTEBOOK: The Tigers may make a roster move today to protect right-handed reliever Randor Bierd from next month's Rule 5 draft. Bierd, 23, pitched superbly at Class A West Michigan and Double-A Erie this year, with 81 strikeouts and 16 walks in 67 2/3 combined innings. He had a 4-3 record and 2.93 ERA in 42 appearances between the two clubs. The Tigers' 40-man roster is full, so they would need to trade, release or designate a player for assignment to clear room for Bierd.

I'm sure glad we have both Maggs and Pudge :pudge: on our team! What is most special is, most of our team members appreciate the abilities of each other and not make it a "i'm the best only" mentality!

Trinita wrote:

Wow, what a great article. I'm going to send it to my father-in-law the Yankee fan. Should spark some good debate a T-giving.

You LIKE to start SHIT, don't you?? LOL