MVP Award Tarnished?

As the MVP chatter around Jeter's season has been increasing, I decided to take a look at his career stats to see how this season is comparing to others.

Lot's of consistency (.300 avg. 200 plus hits per is a given), with the occasional great season mixed in. Like in 1999:

Avg: .349 HRs: 24 RBIs: 102 OBP: .438

Which made me wonder, if that wasn't good enough to win the AL MVP that season who did win it? - Pudge Rodriguez.

Given the dramatic change in Pudge's physiology over the seasons I thought - what a crock of _ _ _ _.

Here's a listing of the past AL MVP's since Jeter became the Yanks full time SS.

2008	Dustin Pedroia	Boston	2B
2007	Alex Rodriguez	New York	3B
2006	Justin Morneau	Minnesota	1B
2005	Alex Rodriguez	New York	3B
2004	Vladimir Guerrero	Anaheim	RF
2003	Alex Rodriguez	Texas	SS
2002	Miguel Tejada	Oakland	SS
2001	Ichiro Suzuki	Seattle	RF
2000	Jason Giambi	Oakland	1B
1999	Ivan Rodriguez	Texas	C
1998	Juan Gonzalez	Texas	OF
1997	Ken Griffey, Jr.	Seattle	OF
1996	Juan Gonzalez	Texas	OF

By my count, 8 of the past 13 winners have been tarnished by the use, or suspected use of PEDs. Griffey, Ichiro, Vlad, Morneau and Pedroia I believe are clean (right?). What a shame.

How many voters look at this list and regret their votes?

What I think you're going to see happen (at least until the '03 anon. list is released vs. leaked one name at a time), the MVP award is going to take a shift from a power number centric award - to an award that showcases players that play the game the "right way". So you're going to see a tilt, or bias by the voters to players who look like a Morneau, Ichiro, Pedroia, and yes, Jeter until the PEDs clouds has been permanently lifted.

With all that said, as of now, the MVP race is between Mauer and Jeter with a slight edge to Mauer (anti-Yankee bias plus sympathy votes for a catcher).

No more PED'ers for MVP.


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