Sports Time Radio

Major League Baseball finished up handing out their awards for the regular season on Thursday. They always wrap up their week of award announcements by handing out the MVP award for each league. I think with the exception of a couple of votes here and there the voters actually got the award winners right this season. I guess when it’s just a 60 game season it’s easier for the voters to figure things out.

As far as those MVP awards go it was no real surprise who ended up winning them. Freddie Freeman of the Atlanta Braves won the National League MVP award while Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox picked up the award in the American League.

If you had spent five minutes watching the MLB Network as they talked about the National League MVP award you pretty much knew that Freeman was the front runner and would win the award. Freeman picked up 28 of a possible 30 1st pace votes. Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers got the other two 1st place votes and ended up finishing 2nd in the MVP race.

Freeman is the 16th 1st baseman to win the National League MVP award. Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds was he last 1st baseman to win the MVP award in 2010. Freeman also became the six member of the Braves to win the MVP award. Last last Braves player to win the MVP award was Chipper Jones in 1999.

Freeman had a well rounded year for the Braves as they as advanced all the way to the NLCS before being knocked out by the eventually World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers. Freeman finished second in OPS at 1.102; he was also second in batting average hitting .341 and he finished second in RBI’s with 53. Freeman also played in all 60 regular season games for Atlanta.

As for Abreu he became the 10th former Rookie of the Year to go on and win the MVP award. The last player to do it was Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and he won both awards in the same season. It was the 15th time that a 1st baseman has won the Award in the American League. The last 1st baseman to win was Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins in 2006. Abreu also became the 5th member of the White Sox to win the MVP award. The last winner from the White Sox was another 1st baseman Frank Thomas who won the award in back to back seasons 1993 and 1994.

Abreu was named on all 30 ballots as he received 21 1st place votes, 8 2nd place votes and 1 3rd place vote to beat out Jose Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians who finished 2nd.

Abreu led all of Major League Baseball with 60 RBI’s. He finished second to Luke Voit of the New York Yankees with 19 home runs and his .317 batting average was 4th best in the American League. Abreu also led the American League in slugging percentage at .617. Like Freeman; Abreu also played in all 60 regular season games.

It seems as the only draw back to Abreu winning the MVP award was it meant the fact that Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels didn’t win the award and it seemed like a lot of people wanted to talk about the fact that Trout finished 5th in the MVP voting and not about Abreu winning the award. Not only did Trout finish behind Abreu and Ramirez in the voting, but D.J. LeMahieu of the Yankees and Shane Bieber of the Indians also finished ahead of Trout in the voting.

Now it’s clear that Trout is still the best player in baseball, but there’s a difference between being the best player and being most valuable and for some reason there are people who can’t figure that out. Trout’s numbers weren’t on par with the three the hitters that finished ahead of him in the voting and Bieber was the most dominate pitcher in baseball last season and I was surprised he didn’t finish in the Top 3 of the MVP voting. You also have to take into consideration that even in a season where they expended the playoffs to include 16 team Trout’s Angels still couldn’t get into them. In understand that in a analytics it’s not important to win, but when it comes to an MVP you’d like to think that he was able to help his team win games.

Trout’s 5th place finish is the lowest he’s ever had in the MVP voting since he became a full time player for the Angels back in 2012. In 2017 Trout finished 4th in the MVP voting, but other than that he’s finished 2nd four times and has won the award three times. Let’s just hope the people who talk about baseball on television can get over Trout’s 5th place finish and spend more time talking about the season Abreu had for the White Sox in winning the MVP, but sadly I think we know that’s not going to happen.

Who did you have winning the MVP award in each league? Do you think the voters got it right?

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