AL MVP?

Well I have to give my two cents on the AL MVP award in 2011. Detroit’s, Justin Verlander takes home the award, followed in voting by Ellsbury, Bautista, Granderson, and Cabrera. I was not in the category of people, who thought Justin Verlander should have won, but I am happy for him, he had a tremendous season by any standards. A no hitter, the AL pitching Triple Crown, leading his team to the ALCS. He was a true ace, definitely the best pitcher in the AL (proven by his unanimous AL Cy Young award victory). Why do I think he won MVP? I think it was because of many factors. He led his team to an ALCS, he had great statistics, and when you watched him pitch this year, it was utter domination in almost all cases. Now we can prepare to listen to the naysayers who think a pitcher shouldn’t win the award, and we can listen to all the people who jump on the bandwagon and say they agree completely, he deserves the MVP. I won’t really be either as I don’t feel awards are that big of a deal, although I do partake in discussions about them frequently, as it’s something to talk about, especially in the offseason. Who wins or loses is not particularly of importance to me, I don’t judge players off awards.  A lot of people like to turn to WAR (Wins Above Replacement), a sabermetric calculation, to determine the value of a player. If we were to use this, then the order would now be Ellsbury, Bautista, Cabrera, and Granderson/Verlander in a tie for 4^th. Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler, and CC Sabathia all also had a higher WAR than Verlander. For anyone wondering Verlander had a WAR of 7. Ellsbury (9.4) was the highest in the MLB. I don’t think WAR is a perfect representation of value as I would have had Verlander only behind Ellsbury, Cabrera, and Bautista in my voting (in no particular order). Either way, I say great that he won it, it shows that he had a truly great season, but don’t think that he ran away with this one. The vote was fairly close, and the AL witnessed some fantastic seasons by a bunch of players. I am curious though, who do you think should have won the award?