Letters to Keith Law

November 22, 2006


In case you haven’t followed the comment thread, friend-of-BMOWP Eric is angry at ESPN writer Keith Law. Law, who claimed that Justin Morneau’s MVP win was laughable, is now going to recieve a little nugget every day, for a long time. Why? Because Eric is going to harass him for months with a snarkily penned e-mail.

And he’s created a blog about it. (Which makes blog #4? Not including Misc. Asst.?)

Letters to Keith Law. One letter every weekday until spring training starts. If you have ideas, post them below or comment on his site. It’s going to be awesome.

Tags: Baseball, Blogging, Friends, Minnesota Twins, Sports |

Comments

7 Responses to “Letters to Keith Law”

  1. eric on November 22nd, 2006 449 pm

    oh yeah, it’s gonna be real fun.
    look out for an outside expansion on the theme coming sometime in the future as well.
    fear not, keith law will still be getting one email every weekday (at least) from me until february 15th (pitchers and catchers report to spring training) or until i get bored, whichever comes last.

  2. null on December 21st, 2006 734 pm

    Wow, so mad and yet if you’d read his article you’d know that he thought teammate Mauer should have been the MVP. Did you even read Law’s article? It had very good things to say about Morneau, but if you read it objectively, you’d agree that Mauer was the better choice.

  3. eric on December 22nd, 2006 812 am

    wow, if you had followed the twins you would know that morneau was the real mvp. mauer is great, but when morneau started getting hot, the twins started winning. i can’t remember specific dates, or games won, but it’s ridiculous. if not for morneau, the twins would have finished third in thier division. instead, they won it. hmm.
    really though, i don’t actually care. have you read the emails i’m sending him? hey keith, you smell like poop!
    honestly, i can’t remember if i read the article or not. doesn’t matter. i know for a fact that i haven’t read one since then. that would take the fun out of it.
    you smell like poop too!
    eric

  4. null on December 30th, 2006 427 pm

    “i can’t remember specific dates, or games won, but it’s ridiculous. if not for morneau, the twins would have finished third in thier division. instead, they won it. hmm.”

    “honestly, i can’t remember if i read the article or not. doesn’t matter.”

    You’re either a complete idiot or under the age of 13.

  5. null on December 30th, 2006 429 pm

    Mauer would’ve been better choice
    Keith Law - ESPN.com
    posted: Tuesday, November 21, 2006

    I think all carping about the NL MVP voters getting their choice wrong must immediately cease. The AL’s voters missed out on identifying the most valuable Twin, never mind wrapping their heads around a whole league.

    The reality of baseball is that a great offensive player at an up-the-middle position is substantially more valuable than a slightly better hitter at a corner position. And when that up-the-middle player is one of the best fielders at his position in baseball, there’s absolutely no comparison. Joe Mauer was more valuable than Justin Morneau this past season.

    Mauer had a 54-point edge in OBP over Morneau, which overwhelms the advantage Morneau had in slugging percentage, and he is arguably the best-fielding catcher in the game when you consider all aspects of catching. Catchers who field and hit the way Mauer does are extremely valuable, just as shortstops who hit like Derek Jeter does and play passable defense are extremely valuable. First basemen who hit like Morneau just shouldn’t win MVP awards in years when there are Mauers and Jeters and other candidates to choose from.

    Even going by the stats that the voters have favored for as long as the MVP award has existed, Morneau’s season wasn’t all that impressive. He tied for 12th in the AL in homers. He was second in RBI — seven behind David Ortiz — and just nine ahead of the least clutch player to ever be clutch, Alex Rodriguez. He was seventh in batting average, a few miles south of Mauer and Jeter, the other major MVP candidate. I have a hard time fathoming why any voter would put Morneau at the top of his ballot with so many obviously better candidates — Mauer, Jeter, Ortiz, Jermaine Dye, unanimous Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana or the criminally neglected Carlos Guillen (the best player on the AL pennant winner) — and in reality, more than half the voters did just that.

    Incidentally, the following voters failed miserably:

    • The one who put Jeter sixth.
    • The one who put Mauer 10th … and the five who left him off their ballots entirely.
    • The three who put Frank Thomas second.
    • The one who put A.J. Pierzynski 10th.

    And while we’re at it, how the heck did Thomas — the third-best designated hitter in the American League — end up fourth in the voting? It’s just more evidence that the bulk of this year’s voters didn’t take into consideration what is actually valuable in baseball: Players who hit and play good defense up the middle are the most valuable position players in the game. The NL had only one such candidate this year (Carlos Beltran), so it’s understandable that that award went to a corner bat. It’s time for some of these voters to put aside their fantasy-baseball mentality — one that assumes that RBI measure something important and that OBP is a hip-hop song from the early 1990s — and to reevaluate how they go about voting for the MVP.

  6. Corey Vilhauer on December 30th, 2006 629 pm

    “You’re either a complete idiot or under the age of 13.”

    Or, he just doesn’t care what you think.

  7. eric on January 2nd, 2007 809 am

    i think corey’s right.
    do you realize that you are spending more then five minutes oif your life complaining about a website that uses the word “poop” about three hundred times?
    keep reading!

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