Thursday, November 19, 2015

Brantley Finishes T28th For BBWAA's 2015 AL MVP Award

today, on November 19, MLB Network revealed who won Baseball Writers' Association of America's 2015 American League Most Valuable Player Award. while Michael Brantley was not a finalist this time, he did finish tied for 28th place overall. congratulations! that Michael is even in the conversation for 2015 Most Valuable Player, after all the injuries he suffered and games he missed, is amazing and i am so proud of him.

this year's AL MVP winner is Josh Donaldson of the Toronto Blue Jays with 385 points. he had 184 hits, 41 doubles, 41 home runs, 123 RBI, 122 runs, 73 walks, 133 strikeouts, .297 batting average, .371 OBP, and .568 SLG in 158 games in 2015. Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels came in 2nd behind Donaldson with 304 points, and Lorenzo Cain of the Kansas City Royals finished 3rd with 225 points.

the MVP ballot contains 10 spots and no player is ineligible. two writers from each American League city vote for AL MVP and these writers of the BBWAA submit their picks prior to the postseason. once they do, BBWAA's secretary/treasurer, Jack O'Connell, tallies the votes before the finalists and winners are later announced in November.

each spot on the ballot equals a certain number of points. a 1st place MVP vote is worth
14 points. the remaining ballot spots are worth 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 points from 2nd place down to 10th.

suggested criteria for the MVP voters are 1. the value a player has to his team, offensively and defensively, 2. the number of games he played, and 3. the player's general character, disposition, loyalty, and effort.

the complete list of AL MVP results can be found here.


this marks the 2nd straight year that Michael placed in the MVP voting, and 2nd time in his career, as he came in 3rd place in 2014. this year, he finished with 1 point, receiving just 1 vote overall, to tie him for 28th place along with 5 other players in the AL. in total, 33 American League players received at least 1 MVP vote.

the 2 voters from Cleveland were Paul Hoynes of The Plain Dealer and Chris Assenheimer of The Chronicle-Telegram. while Hoynsie did not vote for Michael in his top 10, Chris gave Michael a 10th place vote worth 1 point. that was Michael's sole appearance on any of the 30 ballots. Chris may have exhibited a little homerism there, but honestly, i'm surprised that a few more writers did not include Michael on their ballots, even in the lower rankings. all the individual voters and their ballots can be found here.

Michael's teammate, Jason Kipnis, also placed in the voting, though both Cleveland writers omitted him on their ballots. he received 4 votes, the highest being a 4th place vote. his 17-point total earned him a 16th place finish. i'm a bit shocked by that considering Michael had more team highs than Kip, and put up various better stats in less games. just sayin.

among qualifying players in the American League, Michael ranked 1st in doubles (45), 3rd in OBP (.379), 4th in batting average (.310), and tied for 9th in intentional walks (8). he also ranked 68th out of 68 players in strikeouts (51), meaning he had the least amount of Ks in the AL.

in addition, Michael was the 1st player in major league history to put up back-to-back seasons with a minimum of 150 hits, 45 doubles, 15 home runs, 15 stolen bases, and a .300 batting average!

based on those statistics, i definitely think Chris was right to include him on his MVP ballot for 2015. so thanks to him and congrats again, Michael!

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