This week Major League Baseball handed out it’s awards for the regular season and while they rarely get all of these award winners right I don’t have to many issues with who won this season. I do have issues with how some of the voting went; so that’s where we’re headed.
Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels beat out Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros for American League MVP. Now it’s no surprise Trout won since he is the best player in the game of baseball, but I don’t know if that makes him the most valuable.
Now there are 30 “writers” who voted for American League MVP and they voted for 10 players apiece; so in total 300 votes for AL MVP where cast. First off I think that anyone who votes for a starting pitcher is coping out. While there are some great pitchers in today’s game they don’t have an affect on enough games to be considered an MVP. I believe there where some voters who filled their ballots with more than one pitcher and those voters should probably be replaced.
Now in baseball today with all of the analytics and sabermetrics it’s become that the home run is king. Now neither home run leader was a serious candidate for MVP, but the National League home run leader Pete Alonso was voted NL Rookie of the Year and managed to finish 7th in voting for MVP. Oddly in the American League the home run leader Jorge Soler got one 10th place vote for MVP and I just don’t understand that at all.
Soler played on all 162 games this season for the Kansas City Royals and while I understand that the Royals where just 59-103 last season Trout won the MVP award and the Angels finished under .500 at 72-90. Soler hit an American League leading 48 home runs while finishing 2nd in RBI’s with 117 while hitting a respectable .265 In no way shape and or form be I believe that Soler should’ve won the AL MVP award, but with the numbers he put up he should’ve received way, way more than one 10th place vote.
Now I’m not sure what these writers do to get a vote these awards, but I’d like to give props to Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press for being the only voter smart enough to put Soler on his ballot. I’m not sure what the other voters where looking at or thinking about when they filled out their ballots, but they did a huge disservice to Soler.
If I would’ve had a vote my ballot would’ve looked like this. I would’ve had Bregman #1 with Trout at #2. D.J. LeMahieu would’ve been 3rd on my ballot with Marcus Semien 4th. Matt Chapman would be 5th on my ballot with Soler rolling in at 6th for me. Xander Bogaerts comes in 7th for me with Nelson Cruz 8th. My ballot would’ve wrapped up with Rafael Devers in 9th and Michael Brantley in the 10th and final spot on my ballot.
That’s what I would’ve turned in for AL MVP. What would your ballot for AL MVP look like?
While it’s understandable that most if not all of the talk about the NFL is focused on the horrible actions of Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns at the end of the Thursday night game. We discussed this a little on Friday’s Sports Time Radio podcast and I believe that the NFL is handling the situation correctly and I don’t really want to get into it much more.
I’d be interested to know if you think the NFL has handled this situation correctly. Where the suspensions enough? Should there have been more suspensions? Or should those suspensions have been longer? Please let me know what you think in the comments.
What came out of the game football wise was Browns got a much, much needed win. Cleveland improved their record to 4-6 and with the remaining schedule they have there’s an outside chance that they’ll actually be able to find themselves in the playoffs.
The Browns have three home and three road games remaining on their schedule and they should be favorite to win four or maybe even five of these games.
Next week the Browns host the Miami Dolphins which is a very winnable game even though the Dolphins have put together a two game wining streak. Cleveland then travels to Pittsburgh for a rematch with the Steelers. Cleveland was the favorite this past Thursday night, but that game was in Cleveland; so they might come into Pittsburgh as an underdog, but they’ll have a chance to win this game. The Browns return home to host the winless Cincinnati Bengals. This should be a win. Then Cleveland heads out to Arizona for their only non-division game left on the schedule as they face the Cardinals. Looking at this game you’d have to think that Cleveland should get a win here, but the Cardinals have played better than expected and sometimes that east to west travel affects a team. For the sake of our argument let’s say the Browns pull this one out. In Week 17 the Browns have their toughest game remaining on their schedule as they host the AFC North leading Baltimore Ravens. Cleveland may really need a win here, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to pull off the upset here unless the Ravens don’t have anything left to play for. The one big advantage the Browns have with their schedule is the fact that if they have a must win to get into the playoffs type of situation in the final week of the season they’re playing the Bengals again. The game is in Cincinnati, but eve being at home shouldn’t help the Bengals here as they should be in full tank mode.
If Cleveland goes 4-2 in there remaining games they’ll finish 8-8 and I don’t think that’s going to be good enough to get one of the AFC wild card spots. I think the Browns are going to have to find a way to go 5-1 or even 6-0 down the stretch to get themselves into the playoffs. They have the schedule to do it, but this team has been a mess more or less all season. Can they get it together over these final 6 games and claim a playoff spot?
You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen to the podcast at your leisure.
Don’t forget to jump on Twitter and follow me @Burketime
Sports Time Radio 