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With the BBWAA announcing their awards for league MVP tonight, SB Nation has announced the winners of their Player of the Year awards. Each award was voted on by two members of each team site from the league they are in (for instance, BCB voted for the NL awards, but not the AL). Here are the results in the National League:
| Player | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buster Posey | San Francisco Giants | 26 | 6 | 3 | 442 | |||||||
| Ryan Braun | Milwaukee Brewers | 7 | 16 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 330 | |||||
| Andrew McCutchen | Pittsburgh Pirates | 2 | 7 | 14 | 8 | 3 | 277 | |||||
| David Wright | New York Mets | 2 | 6 | 5 | 10 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 204 | ||
| Chase Headley | San Diego Padres | 2 | 13 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 190 | |||
| Yadier Molina | St. Louis Cardinals | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 189 | ||
| Jason Heyward | Atlanta Braves | 2 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 90 | ||||
| Aramis Ramirez | Milwaukee Brewers | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 48 | ||||
| Michael Bourn | Atlanta Braves | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 47 | |||||
| Matt Holliday | St. Louis Cardinals | 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 28 | |||||
| Joey Votto | Cincinnati Reds | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 25 | ||||||
| Clayton Kershaw | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 24 | ||||||
| Gio Gonzalez | Washington Nationals | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 21 | ||||||
| Aaron Hill | Arizona Diamondbacks | 3 | 4 | 4 | 21 | |||||||
| Ian Desmond | Washington Nationals | 2 | 3 | 2 | 19 | |||||||
| Jay Bruce | Cincinnati Reds | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | |||||||
| R.A. Dickey | New York Mets | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 14 | ||||||
| Giancarlo Stanton | Miami Marlins | 1 | 1 | 4 | 11 | |||||||
| Carlos Ruiz | Philadelphia Phillies | 1 | 1 | 10 | ||||||||
| Adam LaRoche | Washington Nationals | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||||||||
| Matt Kemp | Los Angeles Dodgers | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||||||
| Johnny Cueto | Cincinnati Reds | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||||||
| Martin Prado | Atlanta Braves | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| Carlos Gonzalez | Colorado Rockies | 1 | 5 | |||||||||
| Chipper Jones | Atlanta Braves | 1 | 5 | |||||||||
| Bryce Harper | Washington Nationals | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||||||||
| Allen Craig | St. Louis Cardinals | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||||||||
| Melky Cabrera | San Francisco Giants | 2 | 4 | |||||||||
| Ryan Zimmerman | Washington Nationals | 1 | 2 | 4 | ||||||||
| Carlos Beltran | St. Louis Cardinals | 1 | 3 | |||||||||
| Craig Kimbrel | Atlanta Braves | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| Alfonso Soriano | Chicago Cubs | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| Paul Goldschmidt | Arizona Diamondbacks | 1 | 1 |
The top-three should be no surprise. Buster Posey winning shouldn't be a big surprise. What might be a surprise is the Margin by which Posey won.
Posey and Braun are similar by a lot of metrics. Posey had the better OBP, Braun had a better SLG. In the end, Braun had a 0.07 advantage in wOBA, which isn't that much. By virtue of playing a more demanding position and being favored by UZR, Posey edged out Braun in fWAR, 8.0 to 7.9. I think a lot of Brewers fans believe that Braun is the rightful MVP and that he's getting shafted by the events of last winter. That's not entirely true. In a fair and balanced world, Braun is not the foregone conclusion for MVP in any way. One could make a damn good case for McCutchen, too. Especially if you are going on the strict definition of "most valuable" it could be hard to argue that any other player was more valuable to his team than McCutchen. Take 'Cutch out of the Pirates lineup and what do you have? The Astros, basically.
Regardless of who wins, I feel the three men are much closer than this voting indicates. I don't think Posey is over 100 voting points more obvious of an MVP than Braun.
MLB Network's Brian Kenney broke down the NL MVP race last night on "Clubhouse Confidential". He does a lot of in-depth research and, ultimately, comes to the conclusion that Ryan Braun should be the MVP. If you would like to see the clip, you can find it here. It's worth a quick watch.
Here are the AL MVP results:
| Player | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Trout | Los Angeles Angels | 22 | 4 | 344 | ||||||||
| Miguel Cabrera | Detroit Tigers | 4 | 18 | 3 | 1 | 249 | ||||||
| Robinson Cano | New York Yankees | 1 | 14 | 8 | 2 | 189 | ||||||
| Adrian Beltre | Texas Rangers | 3 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 177 | |||||
| Justin Verlander | Detroit Tigers | 2 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 115 | |||||
| Josh Hamilton | Texas Rangers | 2 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 70 | |||||
| Ben Zobrist | Tampa Bay Rays | 1 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 64 | ||||
| Adam Jones | Baltimore Orioles | 1 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 58 | |||||
| David Price | Tampa Bay Rays | 1 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 44 | ||||||
| Prince Fielder | Detroit Tigers | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 44 | ||||
| Edwin Encarnacion | Toronto Blue Jays | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 43 | |||||
| Alex Gordon | Kansas City Royals | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 29 | |||||
| Felix Hernandez | Seattle Mariners | 2 | 3 | 3 | 25 | |||||||
| Joe Mauer | Minnesota Twins | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 24 | |||||
| Austin Jackson | Detroit Tigers | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 19 | ||||||
| Torii Hunter | Los Angeles Angels | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||||||||
| Fernando Rodney | Tampa Bay Rays | 2 | 6 | |||||||||
| Josh Reddick | Oakland Athletics | 1 | 4 | 6 | ||||||||
| Albert Pujols | Los Angeles Angels | 1 | 2 | 5 | ||||||||
| Josh Willingham | Minnesota Twins | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| Chris Sale | Chicago White Sox | 1 | 2 | 4 | ||||||||
| Alex Rios | Chicago White Sox | 1 | 3 | |||||||||
| Dustin Pedroia | Boston Red Sox | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| Yoenis Cespedes | Oakland Athletics | 1 | 2 | |||||||||
| J.J. Hardy | Baltimore Orioles | 1 | 1 |