This trio played well

While there was no official exit polling of American League Most Valuable Player voters, there was the occasional "Who did you vote for?" aimed at baseball writers in general. If I had to guess how the voting would turn out today based on that informal exercise, it would be 1. Derek Jeter, 2. Justin Morneau, 3. David Ortiz (and if Travis Hafner doesn't get a representative vote, it would a shame). But it appears very close.

Jeter, Morneau, and Ortiz all should get first-place votes, but Jeter could get the majority of them.

Morneau, the dynamic Twins first baseman, grew on a lot of people late in the season because he was a dominant hitter and run producer when it counted -- when the Twins were chasing down the Tigers in the AL Central.

Ortiz, a DH, did his thing with flair and an explosiveness not seen in some time.

But Jeter was the best all-around player.

In almost any other year, Ortiz would have won hands down. But it was hard for voters to gauge his value on a team that finished out of the running when compared with Jeter and Morneau, whose teams won their divisions.

The award is supposed to go to the player most valuable to his team, but it can come down to the team making the playoffs (voting is based on regular-season accomplishments only; New York and Minnesota both lost in the Division Series).

Joe Christensen, the fine beat writer for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, conducted an incomplete poll (incomplete because baseball writers are instructed to guard our vote with our life) that indicated an interesting trend.

Christensen managed to poll 15 of the 28 writers with MVP votes, and eight of them responded off the record. Three said they had Morneau first, which likely means Jeter and Ortiz accounted for the other five.

Christensen also heard about 12 other ballots, six of which had Morneau first.

That sounds like an upset in the making for Morneau.

However, all of the ballots have 10 spots.

And Morneau could be hurt by some voters splitting the Twins vote among him, Cy Young winner Johan Santana, and batting champion Joe Mauer.

But you can link the rise in Morneau's production with the Twins' rise in the standings. The Twins were 25-33 through June 7, after which they had the best record in the majors, 71-33. From June 8 to season's end, Morneau had the best batting average in the majors at .362. Jeter and St. Louis first baseman Albert Pujols, who finished runner-up to Ryan Howard in yesterday's National League MVP voting, hit .343. In that stretch, Morneau had the most hits in baseball (145) and the most RBIs in the AL (92), as well as the third-highest slugging percentage in the AL.

Not to mention his 34 homers were the most by a Twins player since 1987 and his 130 RBIs were second-best in team history to Harmon Killebrew's 140 in 1969.

Jeter certainly brought the most intangibles, but whether that makes him MVP or not, who's to say? When Alex Rodriguez was in his funk, and when Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield were missing significant parts of the season with injuries, Jeter was the model of consistency and along with Johnny Damon kept the Yankees afloat.

He also won a Gold Glove (voted on after MVP ballots were in), playing what Yankees scout Gene Michael called "the best late-inning pressure defense of any shortstop I've ever seen."

For the season, Jeter finished second in the AL in batting (.343), fourth in on-base percentage (.417), third in hits (214), and stole 34 bases to go along with 118 runs and 97 RBIs. He hit a remarkable .381 with runners in scoring position and had a .900 OPS, which was 15th in the AL (Ortiz was third with 1.049 and Morneau eighth with a .934). A fantastic season for a fantastic player.

Big Papi was dramatic, played with style, and would have had even bigger numbers if he hadn't had two episodes of heart palpitations. There are voters who believe he should have been MVP in 2005 over Rodriguez but was penalized for being a DH.

It doesn't appear that will happen this time, though he might receive a sympathy first-place vote or two as a makeup.

But Papi doesn't need sympathy. His stats were off the charts, as he broke the Red Sox season record for homers with 54 and drove in 137 runs, both AL bests. He also led the AL with 355 total bases and 119 walks. His 32 road homers tied Babe Ruth (1927) for the AL record. He had five walk-off hits, three of them homers.

Fifty-five of Ortiz's RBIs either tied the score or gave the Sox the lead (13 from the seventh inning on).

When you watch him every day, there's no way you could vote for anyone else, which is why both Boston votes likely went for Ortiz.

But Ortiz finished a distant second to Howard in The Sporting News's Player of the Year voting (as voted by major league players), and Jeter won the AL Hank Aaron Award (voted by fans) as the league's top offensive performer, perhaps an omen of what is to come today.

Jeter remarked that he felt a little out of place accepting the Aaron Award, and you can understand why. A purely offensive award should have gone to Ortiz or Morneau.

But MVP?

Jeter shouldn't feel out of place accepting that.