Saturday, September 10, 2011

SUMMER 2011 BBM AWARDS Most Valuable Player: Luis Terrero, Mexico City Diablos Rojos

With two weeks to go in the regular season, Luis Terrero had a valid shot at winning no less than EIGHT offensive titles in the Mexican League for 2011: Batting average, hits, homers, RBIs, runs scored, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, on-base-plus-slugging percentage and stolen bases. And remember that the Liga is very much a hitter’s league.

While it’s true that Terrero had to settle for leading the LMB in runs, RBIs, slugging percentage and OPS while finishing second in batting average, homers and on-base percentage (he was “only” third in stolen bases) takes nothing away from what ended up being one of the most remarkable offensive seasons in any professional league in the past several years.

Talk is cheap, so let the numbers do the talking for us: .390 batting average, .485 on-base percentage, .770 slugging percentage, 1.254 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, 38 homers, 109 runs, 110 runs and 30 steals. We have hardcore researchers who read BBM: They’re all invited to find a single-season performance with those kinds of totals in Organized Baseball over the recent past. There may be someone who can match them, but I can’t think of him.

Luis Terrero not only deserves to be named Most Valuable Player by the LMB itself, anything short of a unanimous vote reflects a case of denial that belongs in the same room as Lindsay Lohan at the Betty Ford Clinic.

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