Pedroia AL MVP

Dustin Pedroia won the American League MVP today getting 16 first place votes. Unlike the National League where Pujols was the obvious candidate, in the American League it was more up for grabs. Statistically no one dominated, and there was no obvious choice on any of the division winners. That's not to say Pedroia didn't have an excellent deserving year, because he did, he batted .326 2nd in the league, had an OBP of .376, and slugged .493. He was phenomenal on the basepaths too stealing 20/21 bases. He had the 17th best OPS in the league while playing one of the more demanding positions. I think the voters got this one right, it was a rare case where the "team MVP" (or the guy who isn't always deserving but the team loves- Jason Bartlett), actually put up the stats to go along with it, so I can't argue with the choice here. Carlos Quentin seemed to be on the fast track to the award until he injured himself late in the year, and I wonder if the Yankees made a run coming close to the playoffs if Arod would get some first place votes.

Justin Morneau finished 2nd, once again finishing higher than his more deserving teammate Joe Mauer (during Morneau's MVP year where teammates Mauer and Johan Santana were overlooked). Sometimes it's so obvious how RBI predict MVPs. If you are on a playoff team, or a team that just missed and you have gaudy RBI numbers, you're going to finish top 3 just look at Ryan Howard this year. Morneau had 129 RBI, 2nd in the league to Hamilton's 130, yet most of those RBI chances came because he hit behind Joe Mauer and his fantastic .413 OBP. Joe Mauer plays Gold Glove defense, helps his pitching staff, and gets on base at an insane clip considering his defensive position, and Justin Morneau is the beneficiary when it comes to the voting, again.

The MVP awards were both given to the arguably most deserving player this year in both leagues so it's hard to hold a grudge, but that seems more like a case of dumb luck. When one starts looking at all of the voting in both leagues they'll see some obvious question marks that make no sense (Utley 15th, Cy Young Lee less votes than Krod, Morneau over Mauer, Beltran 22nd way behind Delgado, Hanley way behind 2 Mets...), and it makes you wonder how they even got it right.