TROPHY LIFE

TROPHY LIFE
JETER COVETS FIRST MVP AWARD
By GEORGE KING




November 20, 2006 -- The man who has almost everything could have it all by tomorrow, when the American League Most Valuable Player is announced.

What more could a baseball player want than Derek Jeter has? How about four World Series rings? Add AL Rookie of the Year honors (1996), the All-Star Game MVP (2000), World Series MVP (2000) and the past three AL Gold Gloves at short.

Not enough? Try making $19 million a year, having two wonderful parents and dating the hottest women in the galaxy.

An MVP award is the only trinket missing from Jeter's universe, and friends say while winning a fifth World Series ring is atop Jeter's wish list, he is taking the MVP race seriously.

"He competes in everything, and this is no different," an acquaintance said of Jeter, who has never led the league in hitting, homers or RBIs, but whose brilliance isn't tethered to the sexier statistics that have suffocated baseball.

Will he win it? Can he make it two Yankees in a row - and a major league high 20 overall - after Alex Rodriguez copped the 2005 award with a close victory over Boston's David Ortiz?

Since the Baseball Writers' Association of America - with two voters from each AL city - encourages its members to not divulge their ballots, we are left to informal polls to shape how the voting will turn out. Those surveys indicate this year's race could be closer than last season's, when Rodriguez won his second MVP award by a scant 24 points over Ortiz. For many, the deciding factor a year ago was that Rodriguez helped the Yankees win games with his glove in addition to his potent bat, while Ortiz, a DH, didn't play defense.

Will that same argument hold up this season, since Ortiz is the only DH among the top five candidates? In addition to Jeter, a pair of Twins teammates - catcher Joe Mauer and first baseman Justin Morneau - figure to garner support, along with White Sox outfielder Jermaine Dye.

Will the Red Sox's late-season fade hurt Ortiz, with Boston out of the playoffs and finishing third in the AL East? Even though the Yankees and Twins were first-round outs in the AL playoffs, ballots were cast before the ALDS began.

Ortiz's numbers certainly make a strong argument, because without him, the Red Sox wouldn't have been in the AL East race as long as they were. His league-leading 54 homers were 10 better than Dye's. His 137 RBIs were tops, seven more than Morneau and 17 ahead of Dye.

Jeter (.343) doesn't have the batting title Mauer (.347) copped. Nor Jeter is in the top 10 in homers or RBIs. His 214 hits tied for third and are more than any other MVP candidate. The 118 runs he scored were second to Cleveland's Grady Sizemore's 134 and three ahead of Ortiz. Jeter's .417 on-base percentage was fourth, 12 points behind Mauer.

One very important department where Jeter did better than the others was batting average with runners in scoring position; Jeter batted .381 while Mauer was at .360, Dye .351, Morneau .323 and Ortiz .288.

One area that shouldn't be ignored is anti-Yankee and anti-New York bias. If you don't think they exist, look no further than the NL Manager of the Year Award, won by former Florida manager Joe Girardi over Mets manager Willie Randolph.

george.king@nypost.com









NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.

Copyright 2006NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.