Weighing in on the MVP debate

Canada has their third major sport MVP in a row. First we get to celebrate the great accomplishments of Steve Nash and his back-to-back NBA MVP awards. Then it's Joe Thornton and his Hart trophy for NHL MVP. Now Canada gets to embrace yet another major sport MVP in the form of BC's Justin Morneau, he the slugging first basemen for the Minnesota Twins.

While Thornton's awarding of the NHL's top award was met with very little debate, the same can certainly not be said about either of Nash's MVP awards nor Morneau's recent AL MVP award.

The highly upset, and perhaps a tad dillusional, media types in New York are all crying conspiracy as their beloved, Derek Jeter, finished a close second to Morneau in yesterday's MVP voting.

I have to say, I'm really on the fence on this one.

On the one hand I love to see Canada receive it's second MLB MVP award- Larry Walker was the first Canuck to do so. It's a great testimony to the fact that Canada does have something to offer a sport otherwise dominated by US and South American-born players.

On the other hand I am a big time Derek Jeter fan. If there's any reason to cheer for the Yankees it's because any pure baseball fan has to at least respect what Jeter brings to the table. Many people say he's overrated because he's always been surrounded by other great players. That may not be an unrealistic observation but, to me, the guy just breeds winning. He makes other players around him better and, for a sport as individualistic as baseball, that's no easy task.

If ever there was cause for a co-MVP award this may have been the year. I certainly would agree with voters if they had ended up split down the middle on who was more worthy of the award. Both guys deserve the honor for very different reasons.

Morneau's season was phenomenal. Especially when you hold it up to his performance from the year prior. Without him in the middle of their lineup the Twins do not make the playoffs. That to me is MVP worthy.

Jeter's season was also phenomenal. While he didn't have the power numbers that seem to dominate the evaluation of whether someone is truly MVP worthy, he came as close to being a five-tool threat as you could get this year. High average, gets on base a ton, steals bases, scores a ton of runs. hits the occasional home run, comes up with clutch hits, and drives in nearly 100 runs hitting at the top of the order. On top of that he plays the most difficult position on the field and does it better than most other shortstops in either league.

Jeter also plays under a much heavier spotlight and you can't rule out the difficulties of having to focus on just playing baseball when you have so much pressure riding on you each and every day. He carried that Yankees team throughout all the turmoil surrounding A-Rod.

Morneau was able to live in relative obscurity with relatively no pressure to have anything more than an average season. If Morneau went through an 0-30 slump generally no one would notice. If Jeter went through an 0-30 slump you can bet everyone would be taking notice. Two completely different worlds to live in that have to be taken into account when evaluating the total MVP package.

Anyways, I won't say the voters got it right but I won't say they got it wrong either. I think they could've gone either direction and it would have been a fine decision. I will say though that had they gone with Jeter it would have created much less debate so perhaps that in itself says who really should have won it. Or maybe it just says that New York sportswriters tend to have big mouths.