It's been over a month since I pointed out that Travis Hafner was the most valuable hitter in all of baseball. How is he progressing?

In terms of pure hitting, Travis is still tops in the AL, though Albert Pujols may have a case for tops in the majors, if only by a tiny margin. Here are the EqA leaders as of this morning:

                EqA
Albert Pujols  .345
Travis Hafner  .344
Manny Ramirez  .340
Jim Thome      .333
Lance Berkman  .330
Miguel Cabrera .329
Jason Giambi   .327
David Ortiz    .327
Jermaine Dye   .326
Joe Mauer      .325

And, for completeness' sake, the VORP leaders (position players only):

               VORP
Travis Hafner  65.9
Albert Pujols  64.7
Miguel Cabrera 56.8
Grady Sizemore 56.5
Manny Ramirez  56.2
Carlos Beltran 55.6
Derek Jeter    55.5
Lance Berkman  55.1
Joe Mauer      54.7
David Ortiz    53.7

Of course, if we try to factor in defensive contribution, Travis will move down the list a bit. The leaders in WARP1 (position players only) as of this morning are:

                 WARP1
Albert Pujols     8.3
Carlos Beltran    8.1
Miguel Cabrera    7.8
Lance Berkman     6.9
Grady Sizemore    6.8
Joe Mauer         6.8
Alfonso Soriano   6.8
Derek Jeter       6.5
Mike Young        6.5
Travis Hafner     6.4

Raise your hand if you thought Grady Sizemore was leading all AL position players in WARP! I hadn't quite thought about it until now, but Grady deserves some consideration for the MVP, too.

I'm not saying Grady or Travis is the MVP--only that they need to be considered. Let me shift the focus back to Hafner for a moment. It's hard to argue that he hasn't been--at the very least--the best hitter in the AL so far this season. The numbers above, in a nutshell, are the real reason Travis deserves to be considered for the American League MVP in 2006. If, by the word "value", as implied in the phrase "Most Valuable Player", we mean value on the field--that is, something that could conceivably be measured in runs, wins, whatever--then Hafner has to be on the short list.

I realize, however, that the people who vote on the MVP award--all of them, as far as I can tell--are not that interested in rational arguments. Certainly, they will barely even consider a player on a team with a record as bad as the Indians', and certainly, they will hold it against Travis that he is a designated hitter. Here, then, is my entreaty, on Travis' behalf, to the voters for the 2006 AL MVP award:

First off, let me just say that Travis Hafner is the clutchiest clutch that ever clutched. Case in point: on June 22, with his team trailing 6-0 in the ninth inning, having just received a phone call from a North Dakota psychopath who was holding the entire Hafner family hostage, and whose diabolical plans hinged on the outcome of Travis' at-bat, also having recently learned that the United States would be going to war with the combined forces of every nation on Earth if the Indians didn't win the game in the next five minutes, Travis roped a monster 7-run walk-off homer into right field that experts believe landed somewhere in the vicinity of Port Burwell, Ontario.

But Travis is about so much more than hitting. His glovework has consistently been rated best of any designated hitter in the game by top baseball analysts. 132 times this season, a Travis Hafner defensive gem has been recognized by the popular online feature "Mistake by the Lake Sporting Times Top Plays of the Week".

As if that weren't enough, Travis Hafner has the most heart, moxie and clubhouse presence (HMCP) in all of baseball. A recent study conducted at the University of Minnesota-Duluth showed that Hafner's HMCP of 71.21 is nearly twice that of the next-moxiest player, Derek Jeter, whose HMCP of 37.92 just edges NL leader David Eckstein (37.44). Another study, conducted at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, showed that Travis Hafner makes his teammates better by a league-leading factor of 340%. Aaron Boone, for example, would only be hitting .074 with 11 RBI if he didn't have Hafner on his team.

There you have it, MVP voters. How can you argue with that?