By now, I'm sure you know that Josh Hamilton won the AL MVP today and Robbie Cano finished a distant 3rd. And if you didn't know that, then shame on you because it makes you a bad sports fan and, more importantly, a bad Yankee fan. Now Hamilton winning I'm OK with. The guy had a monster year for what turned out to be the best team in the AL and even though he missed a month he still managed to lead the league in many key categories, including WAR.
But Cano finishing 3rd behind Miguel Cabrera is an absolute joke. Without standing up on my soap box for too long, here's the argument. Cabrera put up big numbers from a traditional power position while playing marginal defense at best for a team that was out of the playoff race in mid-summer. Cano put up big numbers (although admittedly not as big as Cabrera's) from a position not typically associated with big offensive output while at the same time playing Gold Glove-caliber defense (his GG Award supports that) for a playoff team and ALCS competitor in a year where almost all the other names in his lineup around him suffered down years.
Cano firmly established himself as the best second baseman in baseball and one of the best all-around players and he did it for a better, more successful team. And he didn't even get one first place vote. Jose Bautista got one first place vote for Christ's sake and all he did was hit a bunch of phony 'roid-aided HRs for another shitty team. Cano undoubtedly suffered the fate of having all those other big names next to him on the lineup card every day, which voters saw as evidence against his importance to his team, which is a fucking joke. Robinson Cano was one of the 5 best players in baseball this year and he deserved to finish behind Hamilton in the voting, with Jose Bautista's first place vote and at least 3 of Cabrera's 5.
(Yes, I'm a huge homer. But you already knew that.)
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