Teixeria vs. Morneau

For those of you who have read my blog all the way back to last July, you'll know that I have a slight beef with the All-Star voting system. To recap, it should be about the fans, but fans have to stop being such homers. Now, you could make the argument about me being a homer with this blog, but the statistics say otherwise.

If you haven't seen the American League starting lineup voting totals yet, here's the results so far.

Joe Mauer should be leading the American League, and when we are looking at the Minnesota Twins, he should be the only other player worthy of a starting spot. However, if you look further, you can see that Mark Teixeria has opened up a 140,000 vote lead over Justin Morneau.

Um...what?

Morneau hasn't gotten the respect of many people in the baseball industry. He's one of the elite first basemen in baseball, but most of the ink goes to Teixeria, Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers, and Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox. The other three deserve ink too, but this year is blowing my mind as to why Morneau isn't leading by a landslide.

Let's compare. Justin Morneau is hitting .383 with 11 home runs and 34 RBI. He's also muscled a pair of bombs in one of the better pitchers parks in the league, Target Field. He also leads the league in on base percentage, slugging, OPS, and total bases. It's actually very similar to the season that Joe Mauer put up last year.

Then we have Teixeria. Tex is hitting .206 with 7 home runs and 30 RBI. He'll get RBI opportunities even when he's hitting like crap because he's in the Yankees lineup, one of the best in the American League. His other numbers are a little low because of a slow start, but you can't reward someone who you THINK is going to have a strong second half.

The Twins have been in that boat before. When Johan Santana was here, he'd have some trouble in the first half of the season, but once the calendar hit June, he was lights out. However, sometimes it would come a little too late and Santana would be left off the all-star team.

Joe Nathan has had that happen too. Nathan would throw absolute aspirin at hitters, but he'd only have about 10-15 saves at the time all-star teams were selected. It wasn't his fault, but he didn't get too many save opportunities to make the team. It happens.

So because we think Tex is going to bounce back after playing like crap for two full months, he should make the all-star team? Well, there is his defense, but Morneau plays great D at first two. In fact, the two probably rival each other every year for the Gold Glove Award.

Morneau talked about that earlier this week and said that a simple fielding session with former Twins manager Tom Kelly helped his D. He said that Kelly started chucking balls into the dirt and Morneau couldn't make the picks. Kelly stopped the drill and laid it out for Morneau in typical T.K. fashion.

"I can go get a guy off the street to catch the easy ones," Kelly explained. "But it's a true major leaguer that can catch the ones in the dirt!" From then on, Morneau got better and better defensively and some would say he's up to Tex's level.

Also, Morneau is just a good guy to root for. This is kind of a homer statement, but think of Teixeira's free agency courtship a couple years ago. There were three suitors for his services: the Baltimore Orioles, the Washington Nationals, and the Boston Red Sox. Tex grew up in the Baltimore area and all three teams were offering roughly the same amount. If Tex goes to the O's or Nats, he becomes Joe Mauer-like in terms of popularity.

So, Tex did what most people would do. He turned to his wife and asked where she wanted to go. Her answer? New York.

Cue the music...

Or better yet...ahem...la la la la la la la....

NOW YOU'RE IN NEW YORRRRRRRK
NOW YOU CAN BURN YOUR HUSBANDS MONEY!!!
TO COVER UP WHAT YOU CAN'T DOOOO
NOW YOU'RE IN NEW YORK!!!!
THERE'S PLENTY OF SHOPS TO BUY @#$%
HOME OF THE 50 DOLLAR CHEESEBURGER!!!!
LET'S HEAR IT FOR NEW YORK, NEW YORRRRRK!!!

Ok, that's enough. But really? He got duped...yeah there's the whole championship thing, but the Yankees didn't even make an offer to him. It's all irrelevant.

Morneau should start this game unless he starts playing like Tex did the first two months of the season here. Bottom line. If this isn't the year Morneau starts, it's thievery.