![\"MlbHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/MlbHlSq.jpg\" "\\"MlbHlSq\\"")
The Thanksgiving holiday in the States has helped to make this a slow news week in MLB; however there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no such thing as a quiet week over the offseason.\u00c2\u00a0 The last two 2009 season awards were awarded to very deserving candidates, several minor free agent signings were confirmed and the Hall of Fame ballot for 2010 was announced.<\/p>\n
The MVP awards were announced at the start of the week.\u00c2\u00a0 There wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a great deal of suspense around them simply because each league had an outstanding candidate.\u00c2\u00a0 St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols<\/a> won his third MVP in the National League, being named as the number one pick on all 32 ballots, while Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer<\/a> won his first MVP award in the American League gaining 27 of the 28 first-placed votes.<\/p>\n Pujols and Mauer were expected to win, so the main news item coming out of the process was the lone voter who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stick with the crowd and awarded their first-placed vote to someone else.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter both had strong seasons so it was always possible that a New York-based writer might have given a nudge to one of their own, but no, it was Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera who snapped the Mauer monopoly.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n Cabrera had a very good, rather than an exceptional season, and his drunken escapades over the final weekend of the regular season, as his team threw away a postseason place, made his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMost Valuable\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 case even harder to justify.\u00c2\u00a0 The only likely explanation was that a Detroit-based writer had cast a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchomer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pick, cunningly denying a rival AL Central player the honour of a unanimous selection in the process.<\/p>\n However, it turned out that Detroit were blameless (and frankly they would have been more likely not <\/em>to vote for Cabrera after what he did at the end of the year).\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, it was a guy called Keizo Konishi of Kyodo News and the Seattle chapter of the BBWAA who decided that Cabrera deserved the award ahead of Mauer (who he put down as his second choice).\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he thought the month Mauer missed at the start of the season made the difference, but then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure why he would have selected Cabrera over either of the two Yankees if that was the case.<\/p>\n It has all led to much ranting on the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Thankfully, the excellent Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated summed up the situation<\/a> with his usual grace and thoughtfulness.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Transactions are thin on the ground so far this offseason, with each team seemingly waiting for another to make the first move.\u00c2\u00a0 The rumours are continuing unabated though.\u00c2\u00a0 Miguel Cabrera is reportedly being shopped by the Tigers after offers for Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson have failed to tempt GM Dave Dombrowski as yet.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile the Yankees and Red Sox continue to circle Toronto like vultures, ready to take Roy Halladay away from their AL East rivals.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still got a hunch that the Angels might end up\u00c2\u00a0signing Doc, which wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be great news for my A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.<\/p>\n Toronto\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new GM Alex Anthopoulos has had other things on his mind this week apart from the damned if you do, damned if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Halladay situation.\u00c2\u00a0 The Blue Jays completed two signings to help their infield, bringing back John McDonald on a two year\/$3m deal and adding free agent shortstop Alex Gonzalez on a one year\/$1.75m contract with a $2.5m club option for 2011.\u00c2\u00a0 Gonzalez had his 2010 option with the Red Sox declined earlier this month, but it was expected that Boston might still bring him back.\u00c2\u00a0 They will now need to find a new shortstop, with former Blue Jay Marco Scutaro being tipped to complete an interesting swap-around between the two teams.<\/p>\n The other two main signings of the week were made by the Chicago White Sox.\u00c2\u00a0 Veteran shortstop Omar Vizquel was signed as a free agent on a one year\/$1.375m deal in which he will likely have a part-time playing role while helping the likes of Alexei Ramirez and Gordon Beckham with their defense, just as he did in Texas this year with Elvis Andrus.\u00c2\u00a0 White Sox GM Kenny Williams also took a flyer on another former Ranger when he signed Andruw Jones on a one year\/$500k deal (a further $1m could be earned in incentives).\u00c2\u00a0 Jones played in 82 games for Texas in 2009, hitting .231\/.332\/.538 with 14 homers prior to the All-Star Break and then just .185\/.310\/.333 with 3 homers the rest of the way, so this is far from the Jones of his Braves pomp, but he adds another option with little financial risk.<\/p>\n The 2010 Hall of Fame ballot was released on Friday.\u00c2\u00a0 There are plenty of names to ponder, both those who have been on the ballot before (such as Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven) and first-timers (including Robin Ventura, Barry Larkin, Todd Zeile, Kevin Appier, Erik Karros, the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCrime Dog\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Fred McGriff and the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBig Cat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Andres Galarraga).<\/p>\n The two that stand out the most to me are Roberto Alomar and Edgar Martinez.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Alomar had an excellent career<\/a>, picking up ten out of eleven Gold Gloves at second base between 1991 and 2001, finishing with a .300 career batting average and playing a key role on the Toronto Blue Jays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 back-to-back World Series-winning teams of 1992 and 1993.\u00c2\u00a0 However, his career wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t without controversy as he\u00c2\u00a0was part of\u00c2\u00a0an ugly incident in 1996.\u00c2\u00a0 Alomar lost his cool and spat in home plate umpire John Hirschbeck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face, a disgusting thing to do and one that some people will never forgive him for.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think one moment of madness should detract from his great career and he should be the first person admitted in to Cooperstown wearing a Blue Jays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 cap.<\/p>\n The other interesting candidate is Martinez.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Playing for the Mariners over eighteen seasons, his numbers are outstanding<\/a> and the following quote from his Wikipedia entry<\/a> puts Martinez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s achievements into perspective:<\/p>\n “Martinez, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig, Manny Ramirez, and Todd Helton are the only players in history with 300 home runs, 500 doubles, a career batting average higher than .300, a career on-base percentage higher than .400 and a career slugging percentage higher than .500”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how Ramirez and Helton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career stats will end up as they are still active players, but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no doubt that having his name alongside Williams, Ruth, Musial, Hornsby and Gehrig puts Martinez in with the elite of all-time hitters.\u00c2\u00a0 The doubt over his Hall-of-Fame candidacy comes from the fact that Martinez put up those numbers predominantly as a designated hitter and he is going to be a test case for how batting exploits by essentially non-fielders are considered by the Hall of Fame voters.\u00c2\u00a0 Being a one-dimensional player and not having to go through the stresses and strains of fielding every day should count against a player\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s case, but the question then is at what stage does a designated hitter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s batting ability overcome those negative points?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Edgar Martinez was no ordinary designated hitter; however I have a feeling that he will have to wait a few years before making it to Cooperstown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Thanksgiving holiday in the States has helped to make this a slow news week in MLB; however there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no such thing as a quiet week over the offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-6191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6191"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7239,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6191\/revisions\/7239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Blue Jays and White Sox make some moves<\/h3>\n
2010 Hall of Fame ballot<\/h3>\n