A funny thing kept happening to Derek Sanderson Jeter — he put up these incredible seasons as legitimately one of the three or four best position players in the game, but he kept coming up short in American League MVP voting. I admit that there’s a little bit of oddity in campaigning for Jeter to get MVP recognition; the man was the face of baseball for 20 years, and he didn’t really need an MVP award to earn any more money or fame in his career.
Still, these awards matter. Bryce Harper notching his second MVP trophy this season moves him in the public eye into his proper place on a Hall of Fame track, so it’s appropriate that today, we’re taking a sabermetric-inclined examination on what could, or perhaps should have been, Derek Jeter’s second MVP award: the 2006 season.