Baseball Thoughts

A couple of quick-hit thoughts:

Joe Mauer won the AL MVP award yesterday. The vote would have been unanimous except that a writer from Japan who represents Seattle (don\’t ask me to explain) voted for Miguel Cabrera instead. No matter. Mauer had a great year, and 20/20 hindsight is now making those writers who thought the Twins should have taken Mark Prior in 2001 instead look pretty silly, including our own Wade A El Sid. (If you think this post is nothing but an excuse for me to link to that, well, you\’re not far wrong.)

This also coincides with the drooling speculation about which team will be signing the checks for Mauer\’s next contract. \”Shooter\” speculates that endorsement opportunities might be a key factor in the new MVP\’s decision making process. Brilliant. Because LeBron doesn\’t get any endorsement deals in Cleveland at all. And Joe isn\’t quite as smooth as Jeter, so I don\’t think it\’s his distance from NYC that\’s holding back the deals. Walters is basically just pissing in the dark about this, and it gets play because he\’s a \’reporter\’. I suppose it\’s implied that he\’s speculating, but without a quote from Mauer in there, it wouldn\’t hurt to reinforce that this is just an opinion piece. Way to go, professional writer.

The other thing I\’m already sick of is hearing the arguments from both sides about how the Yankees bought the latest World Series. I think Joe Posnanski comes closest to summing up how I feel about it. What the Bombers are doing is buying the best chance possible to make the playoffs every year. More playoffs appearances means more chances to win titles. I would call this unfair and not a competitive balance situation, but I also don\’t believe that this is something that must be changed, even with as little fondness as I have for the Yankees. But hey, that\’s just my opinion.