Dustin Pedroia received 16 of the 28 first-place votes to top Justin Morneau and win AL MVP honors.

per RW

Dustin Pedroia received 16 of the 28 first-place votes to top Justin Morneau and win AL MVP honors.

Pedroia may not have been the best choice for the award, but he clearly was the superior option among the guys who actually had a chance of winning. Joe Mauer, the AL's most effective player, finished a distant fourth, receiving two first-place votes. Morneau received seven first-place votes, Kevin Youkilis two and Francisco Rodriguez one. By points, it went Pedroia (317), Morneau (257), Youkilis (201), Mauer (188), Carlos Quentin (160), K-Rod (143), Josh Hamilton (112), Alex Rodriguez (45), Carlos Pena (44) and Grady Sizemore (42).

I was glad to see Quentin at least crack the top 5. Not to take anything away from Pedroia, but had Quentin not gotten hurt, he runs away with the MVP.

Pedroia was a solid pick, though. I cannot argue the call.

Was Pedroia as critical to Boston's playoff run as K-Rod and his 62 saves were for the Angels? Yes, probably given that the Angels won their division by 21 games. I was surprised K-Rod got so little votes.

This was the right choice IMO, Pedroia is a great player.

Jason Bartlett got a vote. For AL MVP.

Jason Bartlett guys.

MLB shouldn't wait so long to announce end of the year awards. The casual fan isn't even aware of baseball at this point and these guys don't get the hype they deserve. I wish they would somehow find a way to tie them in to the World Series, thus bringing more hoopla to both the awards and the series.

This makes the matter of Utley finishing 15th in the NL race all that more maddening. Utley was almost like Pedroia except having more power, better on base skills, and way better defense.

The true MVP this year had he not been injured would have been Kinsler.

I would have given it to Quentin this year, but Pedroia wasn't a bad choice. I'm more laughing about the Utley debacle.

Who the heck is the writer for Rotoworld that thinks Mauer was the most effective player?? Really? He of the .864 OPS? I mean, he had a great year with great average and great on base. He did have a sterling .997 fielding percentage and only 4 passed balls, but his CERA was the highest of his career at 4.20 and he threw out 36% of baserunners this year, which is good but not great. So it isn't as if this was his best year defensively. If you want to talk about best hitter, it was either Quentin or Milton Bradley. I think Pedroia was the best choice, but I would have been fine with Pedroia, Quentin, Kinsler, Hamilton, or Bradley (never gonna happen because he DHs, obviously). Mauer this year was very similar to Kendall in 1998 and Kendall got zero votes for MVP.

Mauer 2008: .328/.413/.451 for an .864 OPS. 31 2B, 4 3B, 9 HR, 98 R, 85 RBI. A great year, no doubt.

Kendall 1998: .327/.411/.473 for an .884 OPS. 36 2B, 3 3B, 12 HR, 95 R, 75 RBI, 26 SB.

Kendall was not as good defensively as Mauer, but please. Mauer as 4th most valuable player in the league?

Pedroia isnt even the MVP of his own team, that goes to Youkilis this year.

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Yikes... I wonder if Billy Martin got a vote for manager of the year.

I can't believe this little punk won MVP. His award was predicated more on health and his supporting cast than his actual ability.

I actually sort of agree (well, not about the punk part). He wasn't any better a hitter than Mauer and he wasn't much (if any) upgrade over Kinsler offensively at second base. Defensively, yes, but not enough to put him so far ahead and beyond all second basemen to make him MVP. I hadn't looked at the numbers until now, but besides the doubles, he wasn't really outstanding compared to other hitters. His average was very good, and the OBP was as well, and the power was good for a second baseman. But he wasn't phenomenal. Quentin and Bradley both provided much more power and OBP. Heck, so did Youkilis and he was one of the top fielding first basemen in the league. In order of deservedness, I'd go:

Youkilis
Quentin
Hamilton
Bradley
Mauer
Pedroia
Kinsler

Same here.

Stop hating people. He won the award as the heart and soul of the Red Sox as well. He busts his butt everyday makes all the plays and hits all the time especially late in the game in big spots. He is deserving.

If Quentin plays at the same level for September, then I suspect he's the easy choice here.

But, having said that, I have zero problem with Pedroia - a lot of deserving candidates, and as BP already pointed out, the top 5 guys were pretty much 1 win apart in WARP.

When you look at this season, you can find flaws in everyone:

Youkilis & Pedroia - hard to pick between either guy
Mauer & Morneau - on paper, hard to pick between either guy (I'd say it's easy for me, given the harder position that C entails)

(Much debate between the guys on *each team* on who was more valuable within the team, let alone the league)

Hamilton - when Kinsler went down and Bradley was hurt, his production *plummetted*
Quentin - probably the most deserving from May to August (didn't play much in early April, none at all in September of course).

When you put it together, easy to make an argument for all 6 candidates above. So, I have no problem with the *ahem* 5'9" second baseman from Beantown (I must be 6'3 then, LOL).

Noboby is hating, well most people aren't anyways, but arguments can be made being that he only had 16 of 28 1st place votes. Not sure about how the whole heart and soul thing goes, or if that is even a factor but Youkilis was better is "big spots:"

RISP

Pedroia: .307/.477/.831
Youkilis: .374/.646/1.091

Gold glover as well playing both 3B and 1B.

I would love to know the address of the idiot who thought Jason Bartlett was the 5th move valueable player in the AL this year.

I'd even go as far as saying that's worse then Volquez getting ROY votes, but at least Bartlett was technically eligible for the award.

RISP is not always a big spot. Big spots are clutch, and Youk never won a GG at 3B.

Dustin Pedroia, the next Nellie Fox!

Anyway, while in the long line of AL MVP's, Pedroia is probably one of the least impressive statistically, the man can play. He can hit well, generate runs, and play a hell of a 2b. Well deserved. Good picks all around for MVP's, Cy Young's, ROY's, and MOY's.

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Hard to beleive the league MVP will not be a keeper in a 10 team 7 keeper league.

As a die hard Yanks fan, thought I'd drop by to give props to DP.

He's one of those Sox players (at least for me), that it's hard to dislike (no matter how hard I try). You could argue other players deserved it, but I don't think you could argue other players deserved it more than he did, which is why I think it's a fine decision.

.326-17-82-110-20 from a 2b is not a top 70 player? That's just dumb.

that's crazy. are you kidding me?

he pretty much went 20/20 while batting .326, drove in 80 runs from the #2 spot [with a struggling ellsbury at #1 and whatever junk we have at the bottom of our lineup], scored 120 runs, and had a .870 OPS at SECOND BASE!

NO player batting nearly .330 with 20/20 will sit on the waiver wire in ANY league.

don't be mad Pedroia outplayed every batter on the Yankees roster except ARod

That is insane!! especially when it's a 7 keeper league. There aren't that many outstanding second baseman in the league right now, the only others that I would put in the same category as Pedroia is Utley, Kinsler, Roberts and maybe Uggla.. No way should Pedroia be on the wire.

did one of Jason Bartlett's family members get a vote?

But it could be that the 1 team that has him might be stacked. I don't know but it possible that the team that own Pedroia owns 7 people who are better keepers including Utley so that 2nd base wasn't a issue.

But two things come to mind

1)If that owner has 7 players better than Pedroia than surely he could package one of those 7 plus Pedroia and get an uber stud.
2)If there's no trading and one owner has 7 players better than Pedroia, then the other 9 owners better remove head from anu....

I know. Could they have picked a more generic average shortstop? I mean, he hits for a decent average (.286), but that's the only thing he does above average. His range factor isn't anything special. He had a .970 fielding percentage. He had a .690 OPS. He had 20 steals. Meh. Someone is either an idiot and was thinking of someone else or Jason Bartlett has a clause giving him a bonus if he gets a vote for MVP and he convinced some writer to do him a favor. I mean, here are the shortstops off the top of my head that are better than Bartlett: Jeter, Tejada, Peralta, Aviles, Orlando Cabrera, Michael Young, Y. Escobar, Reyes, Rollins, HanRam, Furcal, Renteria, Punto, Hardy, Khalil Greene. I am sure there are more. In fact, Bartlett is probably in the bottom 5 (at least) at his position in the AL.

The reason MLB waits till after the WS, is to keep bb in the news for as long as possible.

KRod shouldn't have gotton any votes. Saves are overrated. He wasn't the AL best closer anyways.

Mauer was a top 5 guy easy.
He was 1st in AL in Win Shares
He was 4th in VORP

I would have voted Sizemore myself. Pedroia wasn't the best choice, but in a wide open field, not a bad one.

KRod was the guy who got overrated.

Then Kendall was a top 5 guy in 1998 and got shafted by getting zero votes?

Am I the only one that thinks Hamilton got snubbed? I know Texas really hurt his chances, but come on, the man dominated for most of the year.

The main problem with Hamilton is when Kinsler went on the DL in September, and even in August when Bradley started missing a bunch of games, his production went south - guy was on a 40+ HR, 170 RBI pace, so he slowed down so much with the dog days of summer and the lack of support around him, much of his MVP numbers were seen as a byproduct of the excellent lineup around him.

Don't get me wrong, he's legit, but I have to admit, I can't argue with those points against him when we talk MVP.

I agree that his production was stunted when his support went down, but it wasn't really much of a substantial dive. With that said, I'd say he still produced fairly well, which was worthy of an MVP, IMO.

As is the case with most of the awards, the voters vote for the guys that are fresh in the memory, which is why Ryan Howard got such a high vote tally following his good September. Hamilton did most of his good work in the first half and despite the huge split in his first half and 2nd half stats, he still had good numbers overall which is what should count.

Maybe a better idea would be for voters to submit a vote at the end of each month, then the numbers totalled from that at the end of the season. Then you wouldn't get stupid votes like Howard, and guys who were amazing early on like Utley, Hamilton & Berkman would have gotten a bit more love.