Prof: I’ve never been more happy to say that I was (partially) wrong when it comes to a vote.
Conventional wisdom had Mike Trout being snubbed again because the Angels were a dumpster fire of a team, but to my surprise (and nearly everybody on my Twitter timeline’s surprise, as well) Trout won his second MVP award in five years. Here’s a mind boggling stat – Mike Trout has finished second or better for MVP in every year of his career. Every single year. That is outrageous, and yet, a few of those years, he was snubbed for the award! Like I said previously, Mike Trout is always the best, most valuable, most outstanding player in all of baseball, and it might not seem fair to other players. Mookie Betts finished a respectable second and Jose Altuve finished third.
On the NL side, only one vote kept the Cubs’ Kris Bryant from being an unanimous decision for MVP. One year removed from being the NL Rookie of the Year, Bryant ran away with the voting and in doing so, lands in rare company. For example, Bryant is the youngest player to win a World Series championship and MVP in the same year since Cal Ripken Jr. in 1983. Bryant is also the first player ever to achieve this unique series of awards:
Remember, fam, this guy is only 24 years old.
On a side note, I am very glad to see Anthony Rizzo finish fourth, and my boy Freddie Freeman receive several votes as well. (No, COPO, I did not have a vote in this election, even though you asked if I did.)
Scouts: Wow, so looks like unlike the Cy Young awards, they managed to actually get this one right. I didn’t think they would pick Trout, and yet they did. The rest of the order is about as I expected it to end up, although I think Machado and Donaldson could easily flip flop and no one would mind too much. Interesting how high Britton is on this list, and yet couldn’t crack the top 3 Cy Young. Interesting to see that the leader in Home Runs didn’t even make the list. Guess people are starting to devalue power a little.
Over on the NL side of things, it looks like there wasn’t really much contention. Kris Bryant was the clear winner here. Both Prof and I expected Rizzo to land higher, and I felt like Arenado and Freeman got hosed a little but the voters really seemed to dig on Murphy and Seager. Either way, there’s room for debate, but in the end, nothing really to get upset over. Max Scherzer was the top pitcher for MVP vote here. Not being a NL guy, I find it interesting how many names on this list I don’t know at all. I’ll have to look up DJ LeMahieu.
Fan Interference 
One voter thought that Trout was the 7th most valuable, and another 5th? I want some of whatever they are smoking.
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They are smoking the old “How did his team finish?” crap. That may still take a while longer to stamp out.
As a homer, I was sad to see Altuve not quite make it. But there is little to argue over the choice made. Trout is a monster.
And I sure wish the Astros had used that #1 draft pick to land Bryant in 2013.
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But then they wouldn’t have been able to get Brady Aiken in 2014
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Though I understand the award, Trout is a monster on a doomed team, as freighted with the dead weight of its ownership as my belovhated Feesh. If there is any owner in the game as loathsome as ours, it has to be Arte Moreno. On the other hand, “Trouty” (as his buddy Jim Cantore calls him) has an largely unsuspected interest in meteorology and great future ahead of him as a celebrity storm tracker on The Weather Channel. I think IBM owns the station now, which means that, at least, he won’t have to work for the slimebags at NBC and Bain Crapital.
As far as Kris Bryant, my kids will be telling their grandchildren they saw him play, much the way I tell mine I saw Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays and Marv Throneberry (I still can’t bring myself to admit I saw Barry Better Living Through Chemistry Bonds). Yeah, I think Bryant will be that great until his piss test goes bad just prior to his first walk year.
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