Next Thursday, Major League Baseball will announce the winners of this year’s Most Valuable Player awards.
Which, I suppose, means we only have a little more than a week to continue arguing about who should win the darn things. We better make the most of it.
There’s really not much of a debate over who should win the MVP on the National League side of the fence, but the argument over who should win the American League MVP is more like a war. I would bet good money that the AL MVP situation has ended at least one marriage and led two or three fathers to disown their sons.
Everyone has their opinions on who should win each MVP award and why, but who will win the awards is another matter entirely. That’s not a question of who really deserves to win; it’s a question of which way the voters will lean.
With that in mind, let’s take one last look at who should win MVPs this year and who will win MVPs this year.
Note: Traditional stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com. Sabermetric stats courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.