National League Most Valuable Player, Joey Votto

Receiving 31 of a possible 32 first place votes, Joey Votto is your National League Most Valuable Canadian Player.

This one's for Canada!

Buster Posey? Fine choice for rookie of the year.  Felix Hernandez?  Definitely the best pitcher in the American League.  Roy Halladay? Unbelievable season for the Phillies.  Neftali Feliz?  Excellent closer all year round.  Joey Votto?  Probably the Most Valuable Player in the National League.  If you sense a theme here it's that the all winners of the awards this offseason have been totally fine.  

However, with that said, some of the ballots have really been quite astounding.   You would have trouble trying to argue how Bronson Arroyo deserved a vote, or how 5 pitchers were better than Cliff Lee this year in the American League but the NL MVP ballot had some of the biggest WTF moments:

• Martin Prado finished 9th.
• Two Marlins made the ballot, neither were named Hanley.
• 15 players finished ahead of Ryan Zimmerman who finished 3rd in the National league in fWAR (FanGraphs version of Wins Above Replacement).
• Ryan Howard received a 2nd (!!!!!!), 3rd and 4th place vote and finished 10th.  If we sort by fWAR, Ryan Howard finished 9th on the Phillies.  If we sort by bWAR (Baseball-Reference.com version of WAR), Ryan Howard finished 8th on the Phillies.  Ryan Howard was a borderline top 10 most valuable on his own team, let alone the entire league.  Ryan Howard had 100 RBI on the best team in the league but that's basically all he did, it doesn't make him an MVP candidate.  For what it's worth Derek Lee and Adam LaRoche had more WAR than him,  defense counts even if you hit 100 RBI.  
• Seven writers didn't feel that Troy Tulowitzki was among the top 10 players in the league. 
• Four Phillies made the list.  Chase Utley did not.  
• Brian Wilson finished behind Ubaldo Jiminez, Josh Johnson, Adam Wainwright, Roy Oswalt and Tim Hudson on the NL Cy Young, but finished ahead of all of them for the MVP.

Listen, Joey Votto was definitely deserving of this award but was he that much better than Pujols this year?
Let's take a look:

Albert Pujols: .312/.414/.596, 42 home runs, 118 RBI, 115 runs, 173 OPS+, .420 wOBA,  7.3 fWAR, 7.2 bWAR

Joey Votto: .324/.424/.600, 37 home runs, 113 RBI, 106 runs, 174 OPS+, .439 wOBA , 7.4 fWAR, 6.2 bWAR

Forget if you know what all of those numbers actually mean for a second and just look at them, see how close they are.  Votto and Pujols are essentially #1 and #2 in every important statistic and their differences are so minuscule. Pujols hit more homers but Votto slugged higher.  Votto had a higher wOBA but Pujols played in a tougher park for hitters.  Votto leads in FanGraphs version of WAR but Pujols leads in B-Ref's version.  Votto stole 2 more bases than Pujols but was also caught one more time. Votto hit for a higher average but Pujols walked more.

What should have been a coin flip became a near unanimous decision because the Reds won 5 more games than the Cardinals this year and the fact that Pujols won the award the last two years.  I'm not trying to say Votto isn't deserving, he certainly is and was actually my choice for NL MVP, but it's hard to imagine that Votto deserves 31 first place votes and Pujols only one.  

You can make a case that in basketball, a player has a (large) effect on his teammates.  Ama're Stoudemire is more efficient with Steve Nash.  LeBron James makes a bad team great (but apparently can't make a great team great, suck it Heat!).  Tim Duncan can make Tony Parker seem like an OK defender.  In baseball it's different, a lot different.  Unfortunately, Ryan Zimmerman can't pitch and therefore guys like Scott Olsen, Craig Stammen, Luis Atilano and Jason Marquis have to start for the Nationals.  Only a handful of players were actually better than Ryan Zimmerman in the National League this year but Zimmerman finished 16th because the Nationals had a bad pitching staff and players ahead of Zimmerman had an OBP of about .310 which didn't allow him to reach the heralded 100 RBI plateau. 

If you disagree with that statement then tell me why Scott Rolen finished ahead of Zimmerman.  He played the same position but did it while hitting and fielded worse than Zimmerman.  Oh, but since Rolen played with Joey Votto and a better pitching staff he's now more valuable. Huh?

Or, tell me why Ryan Braun is better than Zimmerman.  Zimmerman hit for a higher average, got on base more often, slugged higher, played a much more difficult position (3b compared to LF) and fielded it better.  But Rickie Weeks batted leadoff allowing Braun to eclipse that mythical 100 RBI plateau so Braun found himself with more votes than Zimmerman.

While Machiavelli would have nodded his head at the results thus far (if he was a baseball fan) the process of the results has been less than ideal.   If the newfangled statistics have really taken over, Ryan Zimmerman wouldn't finish 16th and Ryan Howard wouldn't get a single vote.  We should pat some of the writers/voters on their backs but our work bullying is far from over!

If you don't believe some of the things I said, here are the full results. I'm not lying, Ryan Howard actually received a 2nd place vote!