As the baseball season nears its end, and the playoff races begin to heat up, everybody is debating about who will make the playoffs and who won’t.
Well, I am here to talk about the AL MVP race and who I think will win it.
As of right now, the two main candidates for the AL MVP are obviously Miguel Cabrera and Josh Hamilton. They are both having outstanding season for the teams which are both in playoff races.
Alot of people think it’s all about the batting statistics that determines the Most Valuable Player, but that is not true.
To be the MVP for your league you have to be able to hit, run, field, and basically be somebody who plays all-out all of the time.
Now, let’s take a look at their offensive stats as of 8/12/10.
Josh Hamilton
.357 avg/24 HR/78 RBI
Miguel Cabrera
.339 avg/26 HR/93 RBI
Josh Hamilton has a nearly 20 point lead in the batting average department, but Miguel is easily dominating in both the home runs and runs batted in.
As I said earlier, though, it’s not all about the hitting. You have to be a complete player and Miguel Cabrera is not a complete player.
In tonight’s game versus the Boston Red Sox, Josh Hamilton had four hits, along with a walk and a stolen base. He also scored from second on a weakly hit ground ball by Vladimir Guerrero that tied the game up heading into the ninth inning. If that isn’t enough, he made two incredible catches in the outfield that may end up on SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight later.
Now, I may be biased because I am a die-hard Rangers fan, but I just speak the truth. As Tom Grieve said, “If you haven’t watched the Rangers, you haven’t seen the best player in baseball.”
Miguel Cabrera is also having a fabulous year with the Detroit Tigers. He has pretty much been one of the only run producer in Jim Leyland’s offense.
He is leading all of the MLB in runs batted in, and is ten homeruns behind the Major League leader of 36. Miguel is having a career-type of year at the plate, but he is not a complete player like Josh Hamilton.
Cabrera doesn’t play much defense and he doesn’t run around the basepaths particularly well, which is almost the complete opposite of Josh.
Josh goes all-out and fearless on the bases and with how much he gets on, he gets a lot of chances to run wild on the bases.
The only other real candidates for the AL MVP are Paul Konerko, Robinson Cano, or, possibly, Adrian Beltre. Here are their offensive statistics as of 8/12/10.
Paul Konerko
.302 avg/28 HR/78 RBI
Robinson Cano
.327 avg/21 HR/72 RBI
Adrian Beltre
.331 avg/21 HR/79 RBI
I highly doubt any of them will will win the MVP this year, although they are also having incredible years for their respected teams.
So it’s like this: If there is a better MVP candidate in this league, I have no idea who it is. Hands down, that’s what it is, feel free to argue.
Please comment and thank you for reading!
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com