The race for the American League MVP seems to have more candidates than the race for the Republican presidential nomination. There are players having great years, but whose teams are, as of now, out of the playoffs. The players from the first-place teams don’t quite seem MVP-level. There are good candidates at starting pitcher. Here’s […]
The MLB regular season has 6 ½ weeks left as we go into Friday night’s games. Here’s nine thoughts on the state of the American League, from the race for playoff spots to individual awards…
The race for the American League MVP award clearly centers on Los Angeles Angels’ outfielder Mike Trout. If you’re one who has a bias against starting pitchers, there’s frankly no argument against Trout based on the season up to today.
If you share the view of TheSportsNotebook, and are more broad-minded in your MVP mindset, then there’s a couple worthy challengers. In either case, any discussion of the American League MVP landscape has to begin with Trout.
There is still technically one more game left in the American League regular season, as Texas and Tampa Bay play a tiebreaker game for the final playoff berth tonight. But with the 162-game schedule in the books, TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage is set to close out the regular season with the final choices for the major individual awards in the American League.
It’s time to wrap up the regular season in baseball and that means picking award winners. With the postseason All-Star team already picked, we’ll focus here on the American League MVP. The mainstream media storyline tells you the race is about whether you like Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera and his Triple Crown, or Los Angeles’ Mike Trout, who dominates the newer stats, like WAR (Wins Above Replacement). I’m picking Cabrera, and let me tell you why.
There’s one more day left in the regular season, and the AL West & AL East titles are still up for grabs. I’ve been holding off doing my final American League All-Star team, hoping we’d get some clarity on the division winners, but there’s no time left, as we’ll run MVP articles tomorrow and playoff commentary starting Friday.
We know St. Louis will visit Atlanta for one wild-card, but Texas, Baltimore, Oakland and New York are all possibilities to be playing in the American League game. It’s also possible the Yankees/Orioles could have a one-game playoff in the AL East. So with all that ahead of us, let’s do another round of individual honors today in celebrating the best at each position in the American League.
The American League MVP race, at least in the eyes of the media, seems to have been narrowed to two candidates. Los Angeles Angels’ centerfielder Mike Trout and Detroit Tigers’ third baseman Miguel Cabrera. I find it hard to argue with the merits of either candidate, but before we barrel into September and lose sight of everyone else, can we give the field a proper vetting? That’s our purpose here today.
It’s time for midseason MVP honors and TheSportsNotebook begins today with the American League, where we’ll rank the Top 10, based on current performance to the All-Star break. Before we get into the rankings, let me preface by saying there are two criteria that don’t matter nearly as much to me as they do to the actual voters. I don’t particularly care if someone is on a playoff team. In an ideal world I’d like to see team success be a part of the equation, but not only is it not essential (this is, after all, an individual award. We have these little things called the playoffs & World Series as team rewards), I also define it more broadly, to include things helping a surprise team achieve a winning record or some other non-playoff benchmark no one expected them to get. And I don’t have a bias against starting pitchers. They may only go every fifth day, but the impact on the games they do play is easily enough to offset that. So here we go with TheSportsNotebook’s Top 10 in the AL MVP race…