Holy Cow! Derek Jeter's an MVP!

Before the 2009 Major League Baseball season, many pundits and analysts were saying that Derek Jeter’s days as the shortstop for the New York Yankees could be coming to an end.

There was speculation that he could no longer adequately play his position, that he had lost range, arm strength, and would eventually end up patrolling the outfield at the new Yankee Stadium.

As we head into the stretch drive of the regular season, the same critics are now starting to talk about Jeter as the unanimous selection for American League MVP.

Jeter is having a comparable season to Barry Larkin in 1997. That season the Cincinatti Reds shortstop didn’t have eye popping numbers in any one statistical category, but had great numbers over a wide range of categories.

Jeter is batting .335 with 15 HR’s and 56 RBI’s, 21 Stolen Bases, and an On Base Percentage of .400. He’s fielding the shortstop position with a .987 percentage and has made only 6 errors. Jeter’s stats maybe comprise the best overall package of numbers in baseball.

He’s even made a believer of Bob Ryan, the highly respected Boston sports writer who has covered the Red Sox for over three decades. On the Reporters today (Sunday mornings in TSN; outstanding show), Ryan lobbied for Jeter to be MVP and even said he may be the greatest player of his generation.

Whether or not this was in response to Hall of Famer Jim Rice’s controversial comments about Jeter remains to be seen. It would not be atypical of a Boston sports writer to challenge comments from the former Red Sox star, Rice and the Boston media always had a contentious relationship.

Regardless, Ryan is bang on. Jeter is putting together one of his greatest seasons. However, without Alex Rodriguez in April, the Yankees were a .500 team. Since AROD’s return, they’re winning nearly every series they play and have built a 7 game lead on the second place BoSox in the AL east.

But as MLB tries to separate itself from the steroid era, it’ll be players like Jeter who receive alot of praise and attention. Any player whose name is attached to the steroid label, will struggle to receive acclaim until they are at least 2-3 years clean.